


Incubator

by dead_stardust



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Devil May Cry 4, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Arranged Marriage, Assault, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Cults, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Demon Children, Demon Hunters, Demons, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Flower Crowns, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forced Marriage, Forced Pregnancy, Fortuna (Devil May Cry), Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gore, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Impregnation, Kidnapping, Language of Flowers, Misgendering, Mother-Son Relationship, Multi, Order of the Sword, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Devil May Cry 4, Religious Cults, Rituals, Science Experiments, Sexual Violence, Trans Character, Trans Dante, Trans Male Character, Trans Man Dante, Trans Pregnancy, Violence, Vomiting, Weddings, copefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dead_stardust/pseuds/dead_stardust
Summary: The eyes of Fortuna are cast towards the resurrection of Sparda after Dante's attempted assassination of Sanctus, while Nero uncovers the truth about a quiet woman in a red hood.
Relationships: Credo & Dante (Devil May Cry), Dante & Nero (Devil May Cry), Dante & Nero's Mother, Dante/Lady/Trish (Devil May Cry), Kyrie/Nero (Devil May Cry), Nero & Nero's Mother (Devil May Cry), Nero's Mother/Vergil (Devil May Cry), Nero/Nico (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. The Liturgy of the Lord Sparda

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. This started out as a copefic to deal with my gender dysphoria but the idea got captivating and it's been cathartic to write more about it. I got really into writing relationship drama and cult stuff, and it's been nice for me to be able to take hold of my dysphoria.
> 
>  **I don't condone the shit that happens to Dante through this fic.** It should be obvious that he goes through a LOT of fucked up stuff and NONE of it is good. Read the tags. If I missed any content that should be tagged, please tell me respectfully.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to sentimentalPackrat, who's been reading this fic while I've been writing it and gave me tons of ideas for it. You're my best friend and I love you and I'm forever thankful of you giving me all these ideas!
> 
> **A note: The first chapter is probably the most sexually graphic by far but I tried to make it vague and more focused on Dante's reaction.**
> 
> Recommended listening:  
> [Songs for an Empty World mix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1tYe3TkhTc) | [Songs for a Dying World mix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnl4ryyGkSQ) | [ 2814 - 新しい日の誕生/Birth of a New Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9L4q-0Pi4E)

Now was his chance. Dante dove into the blue stone on the crest of the Savior’s chest, both hands on his sword. One swing, and it would be over.

Instead, light enveloped him, before pitch darkness slammed into his chest. Brightness returned to him. He looked up to see the opera house's interior. Yellow sunlight dappled on the clothed heads of the congregation. Dante tried sitting up by propping his right hand on the ground, but someone grabbed his wrist. He was hoisted up by Nero’s girlfriend Kyrie, smiling and holding a fancy blade. Right above his elbow, she dug the blade into his arm, slicing it off in a clean swipe.

The man screamed and swore, floundering around on the ground as blood dripped from his arm. Clapping brought him to his senses as his pain dulled to a throb, and all he could do was stare in a feverish haze. The pews were full of people in full applause, cheering words that would not come to his ears.

He looked around, seeing all the higher-ups of the Order surrounding him, with Kyrie and Nero by Sanctus’ side. The young man held Dante’s forearm staring out with a dazed, blank look, almost shocked to be holding it. In a quick motion, Kyrie had sliced off Nero’s demon arm with a dagger and placed Dante’s own arm against the stump. The flesh fused together and Nero flexed his new hand. He was whole. The boy’s eyes were glossy and confused as he watched the man in red sit before him.

Dante’s head spun. He couldn’t keep his eyes focused. The blood loss was too much.

Members of the Order swarmed him. Dante saw stars as his clothes were torn from his body in a frenzied haze. Someone held his head in their hands as he was tilted back a bit, then was cushioned by soft thighs. He looked up to see the smiling face of Kyrie as she played with Dante’s white hair.

Hands ripped the fabric off of the older man until he was left completely nude on the marble floor, his head still on Kyrie’s lap. His mouth was slightly ajar, his lips tasting the cold crispness of the air. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath.

Dante could only let out a sputtering scream as frigid wet rags touched his body. The fabric scratched his skin as it scrubbed dried blood from his flesh. One of his legs was lifted in the air by Credo. Something cold and metallic prodded at his entrance. Dante looked down to see Credo holding the amulets of the sons of Sparda combined together in the hand of Nero’s severed arm, pressing into his lower lips. He clasped his hand around the boy’s dismembered arm, making it hold the amulet.

“You have been chosen to help bear our true Savior,” Sanctus said as Dante winced and cried out, tilting his head backwards into Kyrie’s awaiting arms. “Who better to birth Sparda than his own blood?”

Dante stared up at the marble ceiling, past the broken glass of the skylight that he had burst through just a few days prior. His mind shut down as something shifted within him. This was a dream, this was a  _ dream... _

The congregation cheered as Dante was snapped back to his senses and Credo backed away. Kyrie played with Dante’s hair a bit as his chest heaved and he sobbed. “There you go,” she sang, then looked up. “Nero, feel.”

The teenager knelt down next to his partner. His hand - his new hand - was taken by Kyrie and moved to Dante’s stomach. She pressed his fingers to Dante’s flesh and made him feel around.

“There, can’t you feel it?” Kyrie giggled. “That’s going to be our Lord.”

Nero gagged and let out a whimpered cry as he saw his old, severed arm sticking out of Dante. “That’s my hand!”

“It’s necessary for the rebirth, my love.”

Dante looked up at the two with half-lidded eyes, barely able to ask “What…?” before his head rolled to the side and his eyes fluttered shut.


	2. Blood of the Dark Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante gets his bearings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nico is OOC in this fic, I admit. I don't know too much about her, since I haven't played through 5 all the way, but I love her already. She's being raised on Fortuna with Agnus, so she'd have a completely different personality, right?

Sunlight greeted him. He opened his blue eyes and looked around the room in a frenzy. Stark white walls were patterned with gold trim. A canopied bed surrounded him, decorated with deep red fabric. A few couches sat across the room from him. Dante sat up, momentarily wondering if he had experienced an awful dream before trying to throw off the blanket, but instead realizing his right arm was still missing. Some time during his blackout, it had been stitched up, and Nero’s… Nero’s arm had been removed from his nethers.

He had also been clothed, it seemed. He wore all white - a set of pants and a baggy shirt with a v-neck that exposed part of his chest. Robes lay on a chair next to the bed. Dante got up, struggling a bit with how he didn’t have his right hand to use anymore, and put on the robes. The room was rather chilly. He looked out of the window at a courtyard filled with greenery. Members of the Order of the Sword were ambling around, talking amongst each other.

The hybrid went to the door of the room and opened it cautiously. The awaiting hall had a few members of the Order outside a few doors down, who immediately spotted him and rushed over.

“The Incubator is awake,” the taller one said to his associate. The two members were in identical garb, their faces hidden, and thus Dante was unable to distinguish one from the other besides their height.

“Come with us, we must bring you for testing,” the shorter one said directly to Dante.

“Where the hell am I?” Dante asked, still half asleep as hands were put on his shoulders. He was guided down the hall.

“Fortuna Castle, your grace,” a guard said. “You are to stay within its walls for the time being.” They took a turn and entered an elevator.

“Why?” Dante rasped.

Neither guard spoke. The elevator descended, and the doors opened, giving way to a laboratory. Scientists clad in white sterile scrubs stood at tables and sat at desks, paying Dante no mind.

“Where are we going?” Dante asked as they passed by otherwise empty vats filled with some sort of slowly bubbling liquid.

“Here,” a guard said. He led Dante into a white room with a high ceiling yet a low hanging lamp, casting the top of the ceiling in shadow. A chair reminding Dante of a recliner sat in the middle of the room. “Take a seat.”

The hybrid sighed and sat down as the guards left, locking the door behind him. He stared at a set of instruments on a table as he waited. His remaining hand went to his lower stomach. He pressed at the flesh, trying to feel where the amulet had been. There was some sort of lump inside him, but he couldn’t tell what exactly it was.

The door opened, and a tall, dark-skinned man with a monocle stepped in, tapping his clipboard with a pen. “So, t-t-t-the Incubator has awakened,” he said, approaching Dante. He slammed a button on the wall, letting leather straps fling out from the arms of the chair. They wrapped around Dante’s wrist on his left arm.

“What the hell-?!”

“Don’t struggle. Stress is unhealthy.” The scientist fiddled with the chair, setting the position to tilt Dante back. He pulled out a few electronics and pulled back Dante’s shirt.

“Who the hell are you? What’s going on?” Dante pleaded. He tried activating his Devil Trigger but something in the air inhibited him.

“Did you not hear our holiness yesterday? You were chosen to rebirth our lord Sparda. Do you not remember the ritual?” the scientist laughed. He pressed a metal rod to Dante’s stomach. “And what a success that r-r-r-ritual was.” He stared at something next to Dante.

Dante’s eyes were drawn to the screen nearby. An ultrasound was displayed on it, showing off a developing fetus. His breath stopped as he took in the sight. This was one of his deepest, darkest fears. Being reduced to his biology like this, forced into the role of his sex,  _ having a parasite living inside of him… _

He was going to die.

He was going to  _ die. _

This wasn’t right.

_ Why was this happening to him?! _

“It-t-t-t’s developing well,” the scientist said, scratching notes down on his clipboard. Dante was snapped out of his panic.

“Who are you?” Dante asked. “Please, why is this happening?”

“I am Agnus, and I serve as the Order’s chief alchemist, though my research extends into m-m-many aspects of the worship of Sparda. Thus, I am qualified to oversee the rebirth,” he said. “You decided to insert yourself into the business of t-t-t-the Order when you tried assassinating Sanctus. Normally we would have worshipped you as we would your father, but you have committed transgressions a-a-a-against our cause and have forfeited your right to holiness.”

“And so you decide to impregnate me?!” Dante spat. “Just because I shot your stupid leader in the face?!”

“Is it not a fair trade? Besides, y-y-y-you will be taken care of quite nicely. A soft bed, all the food you need, protection, housing…” Agnus said.

“You cut off my arm!” Dante yelled as he struggled against the bindings.

“It was necessary for the ritual, and a reward for the boy who brought you here,” Agnus said.

“Nero.”

“Yes, he did well,” Agnus said.

“Are we done here? Or are you going to stick something else up me?” Dante grumbled.

“Ah, I suppose we are finished,” Agnus said. He pressed the button to release his patient’s bindings. “By t-t-t-the way, you have no chance of a self-inflicted miscarriage, if you were thinking of attempting one. If you could survive a sword t-t-through the chest, you couldn’t possibly lose our savior.”

Dante got up, wrenching himself away from Agnus. “You’re sick. You and your cult are all  _ sick,”  _ he sputtered.

“I’m going to ask you to leave,” Agnus said. He pressed a button on a PA system. “N-N-N-Nicoletta, dear, come retrieve my patient.”

“Oh no, don’t pass me off on someone else,” Dante said. He looked around the room for anything he could use as a weapon, or- He tried swelling with energy, tried activating his Devil Trigger once more, but he failed, leaving him to stumble backwards.

“Your body is preoccupied with the d-d-d-development of our savior. You cannot access your powers,” Agnus said.

The door to the room opened, letting in a young woman with slightly tanned skin dotted with freckles, thick square glasses, and mousy brown hair pulled into a braid. The shape of her eyes and nose resembled Agnus’ own. The girl seemed to be in her late teens as well, the same age as Nero and his girlfriend appeared to be. “If you could come with me,” she said quietly.

Dante followed the girl. “What kind of testing are you gonna do on me now?”

“No, no testing,” the girl said. “I’ll bring you back up to the surface floor and call over your aide.” She spoke quietly, as if unsure that she had permission to talk.

“My aide,” Dante said bitterly. “Someone else to degrade me?”

“She’s a loving and devout member of our church,” she said. “Hand-picked to serve you. Speaking of…” The girl took a tailor’s tape measure from her pockets and wrapped it around Dante’s stump of a right arm.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“It’s for a project. You’ll-you’ll see later.” She slipped the tape back into her pocket. “M-m-my name is Nico, by the way.”

“Mmh.” Dante grunted as Nico guided him to the elevator.

“I’m sorry about my father,” Nico said. Her voice quivered, as if she was on the verge of tears. “Hopefully you will not have to see him for another week.”

“You can’t possibly think I’ll stand for staying kidnapped in this damn place,” Dante said. The two stepped out of the elevator together into a hallway where morning light poured in from tall windows.

The girl looked away and walked in front of him silently, before turning to a room. “I’ll call over your aide and she’ll bring you some breakfast,” Nico said. “Until then, you can settle in.”

Dante stepped into a small dining hall as Nico held the door open for him. He took a seat on a plush chair, staring at the gilded walls. Paintings hung on them, depicting landscapes of forests. He heard two sets of footsteps behind him. Dante turned to see the captain of the guard, Credo, and behind him-

Nero, holding his right wrist with his left hand uncomfortably. The boy averted his gaze.

Credo opened his mouth and spoke. “You will be accompanied by guards at all times to ensure your own safety,” he said without any introduction. “Nero here is my apprentice and is shadowing my work. Hopefully you don’t mind.”

“You’re all bastards,” Dante said. He stared at Nero. “I trusted you!” Nero looked away, bowing his head in shame.

The door opened again, and in came Nero’s little girlfriend, rolling a tray of food. Her hair was now tied in a crown braid, with the rest of her hair falling behind her. “Good morning, your grace,” Kyrie said. She pulled the silver covering off of the food, showing off a spread of hot rolls, an assortment of fruit, breakfast sausages, oatmeal… Dante’s mouth watered.

“I can cut anything that you need,” Kyrie said. “Considering-”

“Considering you chopped off my arm,” Dante snarled. He picked up his fork with his remaining hand shakily.

“I can feed you if need be,” Kyrie said as she watched Dante drop a sausage on his plate before scooping it up with his fingers and eating it.

“I’m fine,” he said. He grabbed a strawberry and fiddled with the leaves, trying to pull them off.

The girl tilted her head to the side as she smiled, then cut the top off of a strawberry. “Got to keep yourself healthy for the Savior,” she said.

“I can do this myself,” Dante grumbled, but relented, eating the berry.

Kyrie cut up some slices of sausage and held them up for Dante to eat. “If this meal isn’t pleasing to you, tomorrow I’ll have the cooks make a different meal for you. You can put in any request you’d like,” she said. “But we’ll include healthy options for everything to promote the growth of the embryo.”

Dante took the fork away and ate the sausages himself. “What’s going to happen to me once the thing is born?”

Kyrie’s smile softened as she bit her lip. “That is up for our Father to decide,” she said. “I am not at liberty to ask what your fate shall be, and you are not allowed to see Father Sanctus quite yet.”

The lack of access to Sanctus irked him, though Dante supposed it was reasonable. He  _ had  _ shot Sanctus in the face. “So, I could just be thrown out of here, huh? Don’t even get to see my own damn baby, I’m guessing?” Dante laughed. “Am I gonna get my sword ‘n guns back? What’d you do to ‘em anyway?”

“Again, I’m unsure,” Kyrie said. She held another berry to Dante’s face. “But for now, you’re safe. Nobody is allowed to lay hands on the Incubator, lest they impact the development of the Savior. Our Lord Sparda shall be reborn in his full glory, and to ensure that, we must keep you as healthy and stress-free as possible.”

“Nobody can hurt me…?” Dante asked. A thought ran through his mind. He could get his way to Sanctus. It was an awful thought, but he could theoretically hold the girl hostage. Having one and a half arms and only kitchen utensils would be hard, though. Dante was a gunslinger and a swordmaster by trade, unaccustomed with this sort of combat, but if he could pull off the trick, surely the royal guards would relent and give him an audience with Sanctus.

“Anyone who hurts you will be penalized. If they hurt you to jeopardize the development of the Savior, they will be punished with death,” Kyrie said with a smile.

Dante jumped out of his seat and twisted in the air, grabbing Kyrie by the neck. He pushed her between him and the two guards, holding her in a grip just enough to keep her in place but not to choke her. His fingernails dug into her flesh, but he slacked his grip so he wouldn’t scratch her too deeply. “Now you two listen to me and you listen carefully. You are taking me to Sanctus right  _ now,  _ you hear me?! You’re taking me to him or I’m killing this girl,” he snarled, staring Nero dead in the eye.

Credo stepped forward, drawing his sword. “Sanctus is not having an audience at the moment,” he said. “Now put Kyrie down.”

“Or what, you’ll hurt me? Won’t you be  _ punished  _ for hurting the Incubator?” Dante laughed. “I-I  _ will _ kill her.” He tightened his grip a bit, though he felt awful for doing it. She was innocent in all of this… though she  _ had  _ actively participated in the ritual.

Kyrie squealed as her throat was compressed a bit. It almost sounded like a noise of pleasure. She melted into Dante’s grip, leaning backwards into him.

_ “I cannot grant you reception with Sanctus!”  _ Credo bellowed. His chest heaved in fear as he watched his younger sister twitch in Dante’s grip.

“Then let me write a list of questions for him and have him answer them for me!” Dante yelled. “I want to know why the hell he wants to use  _ me  _ to rebirth my father!”

Credo lowered his sword in a huff. “You have the blood of Sparda. You are a demon, at least in part. A cambion such as you provides the perfect environment to gestate him. Who better than his own kin?”

“And how are you so sure that shoving my father’s  _ amulet  _ up me is going to recreate him?” Dante growled. His grip on Kyrie slacked a bit to allow her to breathe better. She did not struggle, instead pressed her back into his torso.

“You saw the ultrasound, did you not? Do not question our methods,” Credo said.

Dante squeezed Kyrie’s neck as a threat, but immediately slacked. Kyrie squeaked as a result and shivered, with a moan underlaying her noises.  _ “You’ll tell me,”  _ he snarled, staring Credo dead in the eyes.

“The red jewel on the amulets is not in fact any sort of gem, but red orbs produced from Sparda’s own essence. Hence why Force Edge is able to transform into the blade known as Sparda,” Credo said. “I am… surprised you are unaware of this.”

“I-I knew that,” Dante lied. “But how does that translate into a fetus?”

“His soul is tied to the amulets. Combine them, offer up a sacrifice - Nero’s arm - and put them in the womb of a demon,” Credo explained. “Sparda will be reborn.”

Dante let Kyrie go. “See? Wasn’t that easy?”

The girl fell on her hands and knees, gasping and holding her neck. Her brother joined her side and held her.

“Are you alright?” Credo asked.

“My soul has been exalted by the son of Sparda,” Kyrie gasped, almost in awe of her own words. She looked up at Credo with starry eyes, showing off scratches on her neck that drew a bit of blood.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you…” Dante muttered, truly feeling bad for what he did.

“It’s a blessing to have one’s blood drawn by the kin of the Legendary Dark Knight,” the girl said dreamily. “I consider it an honor.” Behind her, Credo nodded, helping his sister to her feet.

“A-A-Alright, then…” Dante said. He got up as he felt a rumble rip through his stomach. “Look, I just wanna eat in peace. I don’t need someone to feed me.”

“Your chambers are prepared if you need to rest once more,” Kyrie said. “But I can leave you be until you need me once more.” She took a small bell out her pocket. “Just ring for me and I shall return to your side. No matter where I am, I will hear it.”

“That means you’ll always be right behind me, huh? Something like that?” Dante grumbled.

“No, this bell is enchanted. Buer’s Bell, it is called,” Kyrie said. “It’s a special artifact that can be programmed to bring anyone to your location when you ring it. This one was bonded to me when I was chosen to be your handmaiden. I am able to hear it from anywhere and sense where exactly it is coming from.”

Dante took the bell in his hand and examined it curiously. “I see. You’re… dismissed, I guess,” he said, then looked up at the guards. “And you two as well.”

“I’m afraid we cannot be dismissed,” Credo said as Kyrie left the room. “We are to protect you no matter what.”

“Even if I kill your own men?” Dante asked.

“I assure you, nothing will come to that.”

Buer’s Bell went unrung throughout the day. Dante had been tailed by the two guards all the while. He didn’t need another person following him. His gut felt heavy all day as he remembered what Agnus had shown him.

The rebirth of the savior.

Dante had been impregnated in a ritual, not just with any fetus, but with his  _ father. _

He hoped, he  _ begged  _ that everyone was bluffing. This was one big fucked-up prank and Dante would just have to cut open his stomach and take out the amulets that they had shoved up in him… or he’ll just wake up. It’ll be fine. He’ll wake up next to his girlfriends - Lady and Trish would be cuddling together, arm-in-arm, or perhaps they would both be facing him. Lady’s arm would be around Trish’s waist, and Trish would be spooning Dante. Trish usually took the middle section, unless Lady headed to bed early that night. Dante only slept in the middle after a nice little romp with his girls. He would wake up and turn, facing whichever girl was in the middle, and pull her close to him, laying his hand on the far girl’s cheek.

He pulled back the covers to the bed in the palace. The sun had begun its setting and usually Dante would just be beginning his night, but exhaustion had hit him harder than a brick. Dante rolled into bed and stared up at the ceiling. His hand wandered to his lower stomach, pressing on his flesh.

This was his worst fear. This was what made his skin itch more than anything. This was what made him cry himself to sleep on the nights of his periods.

He had gone on T rather recently. He was able to manage his funds well enough that he was able to pay for the medicine, unlike his top surgery, which was a homemade procedure of taking Rebellion to his chest shortly before he met Lady. His first wisps of facial hair had been something he ran to his girlfriends about to show off. It was something he  _ dreamed  _ of, and it was finally happening. He bent his biology to his will and finally felt comfortable in his own skin.

The Order of the Sword flayed him of that skin, stuffing him in a body that was not his. Dante was not a woman, no matter what his body said. Others might not agree, but fuck them. That’s what Lady and Trish would say to him. But now Dante was faced with those who didn’t agree.

How he wished it was fake.


	3. The Songstress' Cleansing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyrie helps Dante take a bath.

The following week had the same routine. Breakfast with Kyrie trying to feed Dante followed by a morning of Dante trying to avoid Credo and Nero in the libraries, back to Kyrie trying to feed Dante at lunchtime, then Dante trying to avoid Credo and Nero in the gardens, then a dinner of Kyrie trying to feed Dante, with him finally being able to retire to his room afterwards. The monotony was killing him, and he had to undergo nine more months of this. Maybe more. He didn’t know how long demon gestation lasted.

On the dawn of the sixth day, as Kyrie ran to Dante’s room to awaken him, her nose wrinkled as she helped him out of bed. “Erm… Perhaps before you get dressed for the day, I can take you to the bath,” she suggested. “A clean incubator is a healthy incubator, after all.”

Dante frowned at her. “I’m not even a person to you at this point, am I?”

The redhead gave a sad smile as she took his hand. “Follow me,” she said, leading him out of the room. “I believe you’ll quite enjoy the holy bath. It is usually for Father Sanctus and a few other high-ranking members such as my brother, but now it is exclusively for you.” Kyrie opened a door lined with gold leaf to a large room lined with white marble and arabesque tiles painted in golds and blues. Two young women in white dresses stood along one of the walls, keeping their faces hidden under the hoods sewn into their garments. A large pool of a bathtub sat in the middle, set into the floor. Benches rested along the edges of the water, and along the rim of the tub were jugs of water. Shelves were full of soaps and shampoos and oils and ointments of all sorts.

“It’s big,” Dante noted.

“It’s a communal tub,” Kyrie said. “It’ll be easy for us to get in and help wash you.”

“I can wash myself,” Dante grumbled.

Kyrie motioned to his missing arm. “Well…”

“Get out. Aren’t you girls uncomfortable bathing with a nude man? Is this not weird as hell for the three of you?” Dante laughed angrily.

“We will look away while you disrobe and enter the bath, but for your safety, we must be in the room to help you with getting whatever you need,” Kyrie said. Her smile quivered in frustration. Dante knew he was making this difficult for her. On one hand, he wanted it to be as difficult as possible. He wanted her to give up and throw a fit or something and leave, but that would just mean he’d get another aide. On the other, she was genuinely trying to help him.

But then again, she cut off and stole his arm. She was complacent in this.

“Then turn around. Cover your eyes. Something,” Dante grunted. He watched as all three of the girls turned away, then kept his eyes on them as he stripped down. He realized he had been getting a bit of pudge on him as of late, even before this mess had happened, but it was growing in all the right places. His chest was padding out into proper pecs and he had a bit of a stomach on him. Lady blamed the pizza and ice cream. He held his hand on the railing as he descended into the warm water, sinking down to his shoulders.

All tension in his muscles dissipated as the knots unraveled. He shut his eyes and sunk down a bit deeper, just enough for his nose to be above the water, forgetting about the three girls in the room.

Water splashed on his head. Dante jerked around in the pool, twirling to see Kyrie kneeling above him with a ceramic jug painted with holy symbols and weaving patterns. “What the hell-?”

“Please, let me help you,” she said. She sat at the edge of the tub, dipping her feet into the water. “I won’t come inside with you unless you want me to.”

Dante looked up into the girl’s bright, cheerful eyes. “Fine. Fine, you can help.” He swam back to the bench at the edge of the pool and sat down.

Kyrie poured some soap on Dante’s head and kneaded her fingers on his scalp, getting the oils on every strand of his demon-white hair. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hands. He felt liquid run down his cheeks. Whether it was shampoo, water, or tears, he couldn’t tell.

“So dry,” she mumbled. She took a small jug - more of a cup than anything - and poured warm water onto Dante’s head. The shampoo washed away into the tub. “You don’t take care of your hair that well, do you?”

“Don’t really have a chance,” Dante said. “I only shower once a week.”

“Your missions take a week, huh?” Kyrie asked. One of the other girls could be heard walking around the bathtub, then returning to Kyrie. The girl poured the conditioner in Dante’s hair and examined the strands. “You have a lot of split ends.”

“I just don’t have the energy to shower,” he said, leaning close. “What’s the point?”

“It’s healthy. You’ll feel better after you shower,” Kyrie said. She combed through his hair with a thin-bristled brush, making sure to be careful with any knots. The brush slipped from her hands and plopped in the water. “Oops!”

Dante went to reach down, but Kyrie slipped into the water, still wearing her dress. Dante felt the fabric tickle him as it bloomed under the surface. Kyrie resurfaced with the comb in front of Dante. Her eyes went to his chest, examining the scarring on it. Immediately, he covered up his chest with his remaining arm.

“It’s curious,” Kyrie said, prying Dante’s arm away from his chest. She traced out the scars under each pec with her finger, then went to the four separate impaling marks. “One of these is so fresh. They’re all in the same place… Did you do that yourself?”

It was true, Dante had multiple vertical scars on or around his sternum. Three of them were by the Rebellion, one was by the Alastor. And each time the Rebellion had pierced his chest, it was by a person. First was Vergil, atop the Temen-ni-gru, the second was Trish, in his office, and the third…

“Your  _ boyfriend  _ did it,” Dante said, swatting Kyrie away. “The newest scar.”

Kyrie stayed in the water and continued to comb Dante’s hair. “Ah, I see,” she said. She grabbed some soap and a bath brush, then pressed the bar of soap to Dante’s skin.

The man jerked away once more, rocketing himself across the water. He held his hand where she had touched him as a mental image of the congregation of Order members cleansing him ran through his mind.

“I’ll clean myself, thank you,” he said. He took the soap from Kyrie’s hand and lathered himself up, keeping his eyes on her.

The girl waded in the water and eventually stripped down herself, putting her dress on the rim of the tub. She didn’t have any undergarments to put up. Dante could tell by the transparency that she wasn’t wearing any in the water, but the ripples and soap prevented him from seeing any details. Not that he wanted to. Hopefully it meant that she couldn’t make out his parts, but crossed his legs anyway.

Kyrie went about cleaning herself. The other two girls brought her some soaps and oils, and assembled four stacks of fresh clothing on one of the benches outside of the tub. Dante looked between the stacks and the girls, only to see them disrobe.

“No!” Dante yelled. “No bathing with me! Get out!” The soap fell out of his hand, slipping into the water.

Kyrie swam forward and picked it up for him. He felt her hair on his thighs as she emerged, looking up with bright eyes. He moved away from her.

“This is disgustingly inappropriate, you know! Don’t  _ any  _ of you find it uncomfortable that you’re bathing with a man?!” Dante yelled.

Kyrie’s gaze went down to the water, looking at Dante’s body. “ _ Are _ you a man, though?” she asked.

_ “Fuck you.” _

Dante was not a man to swear beyond the occasional hell or damn. He just wasn’t that type of person. Swearing was wholly unnecessary in most instances.

This, however, was not one of those instances.

“S-such language…!” Kyrie shuddered.

“What, you find it uncomfortable? Huh? Your pretty little boyfriend swears all the time and you don’t bat an eye!” Dante yelled. “Get out of this room  _ now!  _ I don’t want you here!”

“It’s a necessity to make sure you don’t hurt yourself or the sav-”

_ “Oh just shut up about the demon baby you put in me!”  _ Dante yelled. “You’re disgusting. All of you! Sure, I shot your pope, but if he could be revived, then who gives a damn? I may as well have scratched him and in return you chopped off my  _ arm  _ and  _ assaulted  _ me?! Now you’re keeping me hostage as your brooding sow! In what world is this  _ okay?!  _ Now get the hell  _ out  _ of here!”

The other two girls quickly dressed and left, but Kyrie only sat up on the rim of the pool. She didn’t get dressed or cover herself. “I need to stay here in case something were to happen,” she said. “If you slip and fall…”

“I get it.  _ I get it!  _ Just shut the hell up! Don’t talk to me! Don’t  _ look  _ at me! If I need you, I’ll ask! How’s that, huh? Can you do me that one  _ simple  _ courtesy?!” Dante yelled.

“I’ll leave you be,” Kyrie said. She looked off to the side as she washed herself.

Dante swam to the far end of the pool to bathe. Needless to say, he struggled, but soon, all the dirt and grime of the past week was gone. He looked up to see Kyrie leaving the bath and drying herself off.

“I suppose you haven’t exposed yourself to Nero like this yet. Is that a correct assessment” Dante asked.

“I have not. It would be improper to show myself to Nero before we are wed,” Kyrie said. “Men and women bathe separately in the Order of the Sword anyway, but it is all communal within the confines of one’s sex.”

Dante frowned, but he knew he would not get through to her. “I’m done with my bath.”

Kyrie wiped up the water on the marble and set down some towels, then helped Dante out of the pool. “Let me dry you off,” she said. He grunted in relent, knowing that it’d be more effective if she dried him.

He shivered as the towel touched him, remembering what the Order had done to him, but his exhaustion stopped him from fighting back. He relented and let the girl dry himself off.


	4. The Woman in Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A curious photo is found in the palace library.

Dante sat in the library on a plush couch, thumbing through some old books. Breakfast and lunch had both passed, and he picked up his ritual of researching the history of the Order. Nero and Credo stood nearby, hands folded behind their backs. Nero swayed from side to side while Credo stood tall and silent. The younger man seemed anxious while the elder shot him glares every time Nero got a bit too antsy. Dante sighed and sat back, opening a photo album.

The book was dated twenty years prior, though the photos themselves had primitive color and quality. Dante supposed Fortuna Island was not the most up to date in technology.

The album seemed to be a communal effort, with captions written by people of different handwritings. Couples were displayed together, families, children running around the countryside… A photo of an expectant mother made Dante’s hands quiver as he rapidly flipped the page. He was never one to hang around mothers-to-be due to his discomfort with the subject, always trying to avoid eye contact. He couldn’t fathom the thought of that happening to him, and tried to avoid anyone currently going through that sort of hell.

Now he was knee-deep in that situation, and soon would be swept under its treacherous waves. The very thought of it made him gag.

His slight jerking movements caught the attention of Credo and Nero, with Nero even taking a step to approach Dante, but his glare scared the kid back to his post. Dante switched his attention back to the photos.

A family of four caught his eye. A boy not even ten years old held the hands of a baby just learning to walk while their parents looked on, holding each other and smiling in the gardens of the castle. The man of the family wore the same white and gold coat that Credo wore. The young boy had a look of absolute joy on his face as the baby, probably only a year old, tumbled into his arms. Dante couldn’t help but crack a small smile at the interaction.

_ Giocoso and Ottavia Cavalio with their children Credo (left) and Kyrie (right). _

Dante looked from the photo to Credo. There was certainly a resemblance between him and Giocoso. Looking back at the photo, he saw a softer version of Credo in the photo of the child.

Credo himself looked over at Dante, then at the cover of the book. He puffed out his chest in a quick stretch and wiped under one of his eyes with his knuckle, then looked away.

Back to the book. Dante flipped a couple of pages, looking at all the happy couples together. His heart ached for his partners. He, Lady, and Trish had a photo album back at the office, starting out with a photo of Dante and Lady posing underneath the freshly-installed sign for the shop, back when they were young.

Their relationship started out purely business, eventually evolving into a friendship. When Dante met Trish and brought her back from Mallet Island, freshly resurrected after dying at the hands of Mundus, she and Lady hit it off quickly, and the two girls dated for a while. Dante was their cameraman. The album was full of pictures of the girls on various dates, sometimes with Dante in the background. They didn’t want to leave him out. It got lonely in the office.

One day, the three of them were out at a park, after fighting some stray demons. Lady got the tripod and camera out from the car while Trish pulled Dante over to where it was being set up.

“What are we doing?” Dante asked, looking between the girls and the camera. “I-I’m gonna be in the way.”

“Just a second,” Lady said, setting up the timer. She rushed to his side as Trish held her arms around his. The flash went off, with both girls pressing kisses to Dante’s cheeks. A dozen photographs were taken in rapid succession, showing the man’s face reddening. He covered up his cheeks with his hands as the girls both laughed, confessing to him their mutual love for him.

“You may be annoying-” Lady started.

“-and lazy-” Trish interrupted.

“-and you never pay your bills,” Lady added. “But we both love you.”

“I love you too,” Dante said. “You’re both my best friends.”

“Not like a  _ friend,  _ idiot,” Trish laughed.

“Are you  _ really  _ that dense?” Lady snickered. She took his collar and gave him a kiss on the lips, then pulled back to let Trish do the same.

“Can we even  _ do  _ this…?” Dante asked. His head spun as he looked between the two women. “Three people together…?”

“What’s stopping us?” Trish asked, tucking a lock of Dante’s white hair behind his ear. “All three of us have been through worse.”

“It only makes sense that we’re together,” Lady added. “But only if you want to.”

Dante’s crystal blue eyes shimmered with tears as he looked between them. He threw his arms around both women and gave them a squeeze. “I really do.”

His eyes glazed over the pages as he remembered going home that night, all red in the face. He nearly hit another car as he drove back to the office. This had to be a dream, both girls - both of whom he did have feelings for since the moment he met each of them - confessing their mutual love for him… He couldn’t believe-

_ Vergil? _

His eyes snapped to the page as he stared down at a familiar face. With his hair slicked back and that stupid blue and silver coat, complete with the amulet their mother had given to him and a stark-white gardenia on his lapel, Dante stared down at a photo of Vergil, still with the squishy teenage face that he remembered his brother having atop the tower to Hell. He had his arms around a young woman clad in the typical apparel of Fortuna Island residents, a wine red dress with a pure white hood that was flipped back to expose her full head of slightly curly hair. Her eyes were hidden under her auburn hair, but she had a wide smile on her face. The smile Vergil held was the most sincere, loving smile Dante had ever seen on his brother’s face. Vergil showed no teeth with his smile. It was a grin at most, but the softness in his eyes and the way he leaned his cheek on the girl’s head ever so slightly tipped Dante off to the immense love Vergil held in his heart for her.

_ Arietta A. with a visitor to the Order. _

The handwriting was curvy and calligraphic, and a few hearts surrounded the word visitor. That was no visitor to Dante. That was his  _ brother. _

Dante slipped his hand under the plastic casing of the album and wriggled out the photograph. He flipped it over, seeing the photo dated back twenty years prior.

_ Arie and Vergil, May of 1990 _

Vergil’s name had hearts surrounding it in pink, and Arietta’s had hearts in blue, drawn with a different handwriting. The photo paper was a bit pressed in at the points of each heart. Vergil had always written with a bit of pressure, leaving indentations in his pages.

Dante pocketed the photo and set the album down on its shelf, then walked around the library some more. The photos had given him a temporary distraction from the feeling in his gut. There was a bit of a roundness to it now. The average onlooker would think it was just a bit of excess fat, or more likely that Dante didn’t have defined, dehydrated abs, but he knew what the true cause was. Intrusive thoughts of the parasite within him ate at his brain until he stumbled into a little side room of records. Credo and Nero were behind him at a decent distance.

A small book was open on a lectern. A distraction. Dante stood in front of it and put the ribbon bookmark where the last person was using it, and looked at the cover.

_ Fortuna Island Records, 2008. _

Dante flipped it open and was greeted with an alphabetized list of names, organized by surname, under the caption  _ Jobs and Occupations _ . He flipped through the pages mindlessly, his eyes glazing over as they passed over names that he did not recognize. Credo’s eyes burned into the back of Dante’s skull.

Speaking of.

_ Cavalio Credo - General of the Holy Knights & Royal Guard to the Incubator _

_ Cavalio Kyrie - Holy Chorister & Handmaiden Aide to the Incubator _

_ Cavalio Nero - Holy Knight & Royal Guard to the Incubator _

The ink for the latter halves of their jobs were in fresher ink than the first part. More of a blue tint than the yellow-brown of the rest of the words. The handwriting was a tad different as well.

But Nero, under the Cavalio name… Dante was under the impression that he and Kyrie were dating. They were  _ siblings?  _ Nero certainly didn’t look the part, with his stark white hair, snowy blue eyes, and pallid cheeks. Perhaps he was adopted.

Dante flipped back a few pages, with the name Arietta A. still fresh in his mind. He went to the start and looked down.

...Ambrosi Crescenzo, Amoretto Elena…  _ Angelo Arietta. _

Arietta A.

His eyes focused in.

_ Angelo Arietta - Chambermaid to the Palace - Undesirable, do not interact _

The last few words were written in red. Undesirable… What had she done?

Dante flipped through the rest of the book, finding a list of births and deaths near the middle. He had put the bookmark in the most recent page where new deaths had been recorded. The three most recent deaths were of holy knights, with their death causes being fallen in battle to demons.

That’s what they got for trying to open Hell Gates. What fools.

Dante shut the book and left the room, passing by his guards on the way. They followed him wordlessly, trailing behind him at a respectful distance. Guards and maids alike within the palace bowed and greeted Dante whenever he passed by. Some attempted to touch him and adorn him with flowers, others merely peered around corners and stared. After a few weeks of this behavior, Dante grew used to it, though needless to say, he didn’t care for it.

He reached his room, seeing it open. “Hey!” He ran over as best he could to see a woman clad in the hooded outfits of the Order’s maids scamper out, carrying a pile of dirty clothing. Her eyes were covered with her hood, and oddly enough, the fabric was red instead of the typical white. She tilted her face away and ran off, not daring to look up at any of the men before her.

Dante entered his room and shut it, seeing his bed with fresh linens and his armoire stocked with clean clothing. He sighed and pulled the photograph from his pocket, then sat it down upon the bedside table. He hadn’t seen Vergil in two decades... 

His mind wandered as he lay down on his bed.  _ Vergil had been to Fortuna Island.  _ The place worshipped their father, and Vergil  _ was  _ trying to gain their father’s power. Dante could only assume he came to the Order of the Sword looking for information on Sparda. He was able to leave unscathed, continuing on his journey of opening the portal between humanity and the damned.

_ Why was Vergil allowed to get off so easily? _

Dante rested his hand on his stomach. He could’ve sworn he felt a few flutters of something… Maybe he was just hungry, or his muscles were twitching… It wasn’t soon enough to be feeling any movement from the infernal parasite infecting him…


	5. White Daisy, Blue Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante spends a day in the garden.

The infection worsened as the weeks passed. Dante didn’t know how long demons took to grow, or how long he was within the confines of the palace, but an eternity had already passed. He made a point to scratching in tally marks on his dresser after each day had passed.

It had only been 35 days.

It was warm out now. The snow had melted away from the palace grounds and let Dante walk outside with the robes he was given without freezing up. Those roaming the gardens would look at him in surprise and awe. Not at  _ him _ , but at the parasite growing within.

Dante took a seat on one of the benches and tilted his head back, feeling the sun on his face. He shut his eyes, trying to drown out the feeling of Credo and Nero watching him from across the courtyard.

Two sets of footsteps approached him after a short while. Dante opened his eyes to see two little girls in white and gold dresses with arms full of flowers. They stared up at him with wide eyes and offered him a crown woven of white daisies. “This is for you, your grace,” the elder of the two girls said while the younger stood on her tip-toes, holding out the crown for him. Neither of them were over the age of seven.

Dante looked between the two girls, seeing the loving grins on their faces. He chuckled and leaned over. “Thanks,” he said.

The younger child placed the crown on his head and then shot her hands back, clutching her fists to her chest as she danced on her toes. “Pia an’ I made this one just for you!”

Dante looked at the elder child’s crowns. Sure as the younger said, the elder didn’t have any other crowns of white daisies. “Thank you so much, I love it,” he said. For the first time in so long, Dante smiled. “It’s beautiful.”

“He likes it!” The younger girl beamed. She took the hand of the other and ran off. “Bye bye!”

Dante waved as he watched the girls approach a woman from across the courtyard, carrying a basket of linens. Her auburn hair spilled out of a red hood as she kept her face down. The younger child took a crown of gardenias from her sister’s arm and said something to the woman.

_ “Not her!”  _ A knight jogged over and grabbed the ear of the child, pulling her up into the air as he chastised her. “Do you not know better, Vera?!” The woman in the red hood turned her head away and backed into one of the bushes as the younger child squealed and thrashed about.

Frowning, Dante got up and walked over. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?! She’s not doing anything wrong!”

The knight let go of the young girl, backing away in surprise. “She needs to learn-!”

“You don’t teach a child by hurting them!” Dante yelled. He grabbed the knight by his ear and yanked on it. “You like this, huh?! You like it when someone else does this to you?!”

“M-m-my apologies, your grace-!” The knight squeaked as Credo and Nero approached. “I promise, I will not do this again…!”

“That’s right you won’t,” Dante said. “Now get going.” He glared down the knight as he scampered away.

The two little girls looked up between Dante and the lady in the red hood. “...I didn’t know we’d get yelled at,” the younger child said.

Credo knelt down and put his hand on her shoulder. “I apologize for what he did, but did your mother never tell you not to talk to those with red hoods?”

“She just looks so lonely,” the child said.

“You are not to talk or touch anyone with red hoods, no matter how lonely they get,” Credo said.

“What the hell kind of rule is that?” Dante said. “Is this some sort of punishment on her? What kind of bull is that?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Credo said.

The younger child looked up at Nero. “What kinda flowers do you like?”

“Me?” The younger knight blushed. “I-I like blue roses, I guess. I named my gun Blue Rose, actually.” Nero gave a nervous smile.

The younger sister looked at her elder’s crowns. “Um, we only have red roses… Is that alright?”

“‘S okay, I-I don’t-” Nero blubbered, before the little girl held up a crown of red roses to him. “Aww, thank you.”

Credo smiled and looked down at the girls. “Thank you, but we have our jobs to do. You two best run along, alright? Go hand out those pretty flowers to anyone except in red.”

The two girls nodded, giving the quiet woman a nervous glance, then looked back at Credo. “Okay, sir,” the elder said. They ran off, taking one last look at Dante, his guards, and the woman in red.

Dante turned to the woman. “I’m so sorry for all the trouble-”

Credo cleared his throat. “...You may bend the rules, but it is improper form.”

“I’ll talk to her all I damn want. Now go away,” Dante said, shooing Credo and Nero away. The guards backed off and kept their distance while Dante turned his attention back to the woman. “Are you alright?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to anyone,” the woman said, averting her gaze. Her voice was a rasp. She coughed and punched her chest a bit.

“Nobody’s going to question me. If they have a problem with you talking to me, then they can take it up with me,” Dante said. He tilted his head slightly to the side, barely seeing past the woman’s hood and brown bangs to blue-green eyes underneath, looking away from him. “What’s your name?”

“I shouldn’t tell you that,” she said. “Please, I need to go.”

“A-Alright. Listen, you can talk to me if you’d like. I dunno what sort of punishment you’re under, but this stuff just seems cruel,” Dante said.

The woman choked back a sob. “Thank you…” She picked up the blasket she was carrying and ran off into the palace.

Dante went back to his spot on the bench. He stretched, feeling the vertebrae in his spine all pop, then sat back. He watched passersby walk down the garden lane, acknowledging him with penetrating gazes. He shut his eyes and tucked his chin to his chest for a quick nap.


	6. Bloodline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The woman in red is confronted. Dante gets a new arm.

“It-t-t-t’s going faster than expected,” Agnus ticked. “Soon our Lord Sparda will grace us with his presence.”

“Are we done here?” Dante grunted.

“Not quite,” Agnus said. He pressed a button to let the door to the room open, letting Nico in. The girl held something wrapped up in tan linens, about the size of a loaf of bread. “She has something for you.”

“Erm, I- We got the clearance to let you have this,” Nico said quietly as she approached Dante. “I-I was the one who suggested this. I made this...” She set the object down on a side table and opened it to reveal a metal arm, made of red and silver steel.

Dante rolled his eyes and looked away, saying nothing as Nico outfitted the arm onto him. She stood back and nudged his fingers.

A certain sense of feeling came back to him. Dante flexed out his right hand and stretched it out in awe. “It really works,” he mused. “This- This is  _ amazing!” _

Nico smiled and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “It’s still a prototype. If you have any issues with it, come down to the laboratory, or-or-or maybe tell someone else… I don’t want to bother you. You could call your aide…”

“Yeah, of course,” Dante said. He sat up and got off of the reclining chair, leaving the room with Nico. As he walked away, flexing his new fingers, he realized he did not have any feeling in his hand. This wasn’t any sort of replacement. “You made this, huh?”

“Yes, I’ve been working on prosthetics via alchemy,” Nico said. “There’s quite a number of people here in the Order who have missing limbs. Demons tend to attack us a lot.”

“Well, you have those Hell Gates all around. You’re inviting demons into your backyard,” Dante said.

Nico sighed as she escorted Dante to the surface. “There’s nothing to do about that,” she said. The elevator door opened, revealing Credo and Nero waiting across the hallway. Nero turned, showing off a splotch of blue on his lapel. As Dante focused his eyes, he could make out the splotch was a blue rose.

Nero looked over. “Hello, Nicoletta,” he said. His face flushed bright red and he looked away. The young scientist averted her gaze as well, her own tanned cheeks blushing along with Nero’s.

Dante walked off towards the dining room, though Nico followed him along with the usual guards. “Why are you coming with?”

“Me? O-Oh, I wanted to see how the arm works,” Nico said. “Is that alright?”

“Sure, fine,” Dante said, popping his knuckles. He entered the dining room and sat down, where Kyrie was already waiting with his food. “You’re dismissed. If this arm really works, I don’t need you feeding me like I’m some sort of baby.”

“Just ring the bell and I’ll be at your side,” Kyrie said. She left the room, shutting the door behind herself.

Dante grabbed a handful of strawberries and dumped them on his plate, then took the butter knife to lop off the leafy tops of them. Nico sat across from him, holding a clipboard, and scribbled down some information. “Are you interviewing me?” Dante asked.

“If you could give input, t-that would be nice,” Nico said.

“It feels natural,” Dante said, popping a berry into his mouth. “Besides not being able to feel what I’m touching, it feels like my hand never left.” He grabbed his cup of milk, but the handle slipped in his grip, spilling the liquid onto his top.  _ “Whup-! _ That- I didn’t mean to…”

“Metal on ceramic,” Nico said. “Two smooth surfaces.” She reached across the table and touched the pads of Dante’s artificial fingers. “Maybe the fingers should be some sort of semi-malleable material. Our hands have a bit of give to them. It molds around what we are holding, almost.” She wrote a few notes down.

Dante nodded and picked up the knife, and cut a few more strawberries. “Do you want some?” He motioned to the cut berries.

“Those are for you, your grace,” Nico said, dipping her head down. “All of this food is hand-picked to facilitate the healthy development of the Lord Sparda, and of course keep up your health. That’s the most important part.”

“What will you do with him once he’s born?” Dante asked. “And what will you do with me?”

“I do not have the clearance to answer that question,” Nico admitted. “My father oversees the development, but he does not make me privy to such answers.” Her voice was quiet and on the verge of tears.

Dante bit into one of the strawberries. He let his left hand fall beneath the table and lay on his stomach. He could have sworn that he felt a bit of heat emanate off of his slightly straining belly. A possible effect of carrying a demon.

Not just any demon.

His father.

That is, if they were right.

Dante continued his breakfast, answering Nico’s questions and testing out the prosthetic. He finished up his full meal and the girl ran off, saying she had to input the information into the laboratory. Dante got up and left the dining room. “Gonna go change my shirt,” he said.

The three of them went up to Dante’s quarters. The guards stayed outside while Dante entered his room, seeing his old night clothes had been taken away from the floor and his bed had been made. Something caught his eye on the nightstand.

As Dante changed, he looked over at the photo of Vergil and his little girlfriend. Next to it was a single blue rose, resting on top of a book Dante had borrowed from the library, with a few petals scattered around the photograph like a frame. One petal laid over Arietta’s already obscured face, covering her smile completely.

His mind flashed to Nero, with the rose on his lapel.

Dante threw his dirty shirt down on the ground and put the new one on, then left the room. He started his way down to the library, with his guards following him. “Nero,” Dante said, making the boy jump in surprise. “Where did you get that flower?”

“Someone left it outside my door,” Nero said. “I guess it was the little girls from yesterday with the flower crowns. They asked me my favorite flower and they didn’t have any crowns of this color of rose. It’s cute that they remembered.”

“That’s sweet,” Dante said, though it didn’t answer his question of how a blue rose appeared in his room.

Down a flight of stairs, and they ended up in the library. A swatch of red caught Dante’s eye briefly, though it disappeared. He followed the blur only to be greeted with the records room once more. A blue petal rested on the floor next to a dislodged book on the bottom shelf. He turned around, seeing Nero and Credo take their places on the far wall. Nero had his eyes closed and his head tucked to his chest while Credo wiped his handkerchief down his sword. Dante turned to the dislodged book and opened it.

_ Fortuna Island Records, 1991 _

Dante opened the pages. Out of curiosity, he searched for Arietta’s name, wondering what became of her fate after having met Vergil.

_ Angelo Arietta -  _ _ Holy Chorister & Priestess of Sparda _ _ Undesirable, do not interact _

The strikethrough and words following the stricken words were all in red. Dante set the book down on the lectern and found the island records for 1990 and flipped through the pages.

_ Angelo Arietta - Holy Chorister & Priestess of Sparda _

No red ink.

Something happened to her in that year to lead her to being undesirable.

Dante flipped through the records for ‘90 in search of Vergil’s name, but found nothing. He set the book back on its shelf and went back to the ‘91 records. Whoever set up the blue roses must have wanted him to see this.

Dante thumbed through the pages, finding nothing of note. Just names of occupations. He opened up the ribbon bookmark to its marked page. It had left off at certain January births and deaths. His eyes wandered down the page until-

An entire record had been blotted out with white ink, and underneath another record had been written.

_ Nero Cavalio - adopted by Giocoso and Ottavia Cavalio at birth. 5.2 lbs. White hair, blue eyes, male _

Adopted.

Dante squinted at the white ink. He carefully tore out the page from the book and held it up to the light. He could discern black ink underneath.

_ Nero Angelo - born to Arietta Angelo and Vergil S. 5.2 lbs. White hair, blue eyes, male _

_ Vergil S. _

Vergil had a son.

Dante pocketed the loose page and put the rest of the book back into its spot, then walked around the records room, stealing glances at Nero through the doorway.

It all made sense. The demon arm, the reaction to the Yamato, his pissy attitude, hell, the kid  _ looked  _ like his father! Dante just couldn’t see it at first.

His hand went to his belly a bit absentmindedly. Perhaps Vergil did not get off easy. Was he forced to reproduce with Arietta? But the photo of them seemed so happy… However, looks could be deceiving.

Dante paced around the room. Arietta worked in the palace as a chambermaid, huh? Was-?

_ The woman in red.  _ She had heard Nero’s favorite flower.

Dante rushed out of the library the moment he saw Nero’s eyes shut and Credo yawn, hoping they didn’t hear his footsteps. He left into the hallway outside the library, seeing someone stand at the other end. A woman in a white Order dress and a red hood. She looked at him for a moment before turning inside a room. He followed her, entering an unoccupied supply room.

“Shut the door,” the woman said.

Dante shut the door behind him. “You’re Arietta, aren’t you?” The man asked.

The woman put down her red hood, showing off the same auburn hair that was in the photo. She had deep bags under her eyes and her cheeks were a bit sunken in. Underneath her dress, Dante could tell that she was rather thin. “Yes, I am,” she said. “And you’re Vergil’s brother.”

Dante took a seat down on a bench in the supply room, resting his organic hand on his stomach while he cracked his back. “Mmh, all this  _ pain-!” _

Arietta sat across from him. “What happened to Vergil? He said he was coming back. He needed to leave to find something, but he said he’d come back in a few weeks.” She wiped a few tears from her eyes. “He said he loved me.”

Dante stared at the woman, remembering the last time he saw his brother. A demon in Mundus’ army.

“He…” Dante wiped his face with the back of his metallic hand. “I don’t know what became of him. The last I saw him, we were both 19. He slipped into Hell, the last we interacted. He was… I remember what he said to me. He sought out power…” The memory snapped back to him.  _ “Might controls everything, and without strength, you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself.  _ That’s what he had said to me. Not the last thing he said, but it was his thesis of sorts...”

“He was certainly capable of protecting himself,” Arietta said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Saved this whole island from demons back when we were both teenagers. People got hurt, yes, but that’s what happens.” She folded her arms across her chest. As her sleeves moved, Dante could see a hint of a nasty scar down the back of her forearm.

“You were one of them?”

Arietta nodded and pulled back her sleeves, showing off some gouge marks that had long since sealed up, but still bore discoloration. “The demons swarmed us. He did all he could, and we made it out alive…” The woman’s voice trailed off.

“Why is it that you’re marked as undesirable?” Dante asked. “I’m not attuned to the customs of the Order, but what’s that all about?”

“It’s improper for an unmarried girl to have a child in the first place, but I was a songstress. The head of the choir. I did solos and everything, and I was to be a high priestess of Sparda. I was the picture of purity, and the will of Sparda dictates that the holy chorister be pure until wed,” Arietta said. “But a defiled, desecrated girl, pregnant at the age of eighteen… I went against our beliefs by bedding Vergil and giving birth to Nero.”

“So Nero is Vergil’s son,” Dante said.

“Yes, he is.”

“And you named him?” Dante asked.

“No, that was Vergil’s idea. At first I wanted to name him Rodin but Vergil vocalized his name for our child before I made my suggestion, and I fell in love with the name,” Arietta said, putting her head on her hand. “I’m still surprised to this day that Gio and Via let him keep that name.”

“Gio and Via?”

“Giocoso and Ottavia. Oh, they passed away a few years ago, but they were the ones who took in Nero. Not by choice, mind you. He was given to them because they were the most pure and devout servants of Sparda, and being raised by them would beat my sinfulness out of them,” Arietta said. “And lucky for them, they already had two children. Already knew how to care for a baby.”

“I’d think that you having sex and having a child with a son of Sparda would make you revered,” Dante said. “Not ostracized.”

“Vergil didn’t want anyone to know his identity,” Arietta said. “It took him months to confide his parentage in me.”

“So you two were together for awhile?”

“Nearly a whole year. He left for his… whatever he did when I was three months pregnant. He said he wouldn’t dare to miss Nero’s birth for the world and he would be back within the month,” Arietta said. “And he’d marry me before anyone found out.”

“I’m sorry,” Dante said. He could have stopped this. If he convinced Vergil not to fall into the abyss, if he just tried to reach out… This was all his fault.

“I’m forever grateful that they let me work in the palace after a few years of exile in Mitis Forest,” Arietta said. “I got to-”

“Exile in the  _ forest?”  _ Dante sputtered.

“Yes, they carried me out there soon after Nero was born and left me with supplies,” Arietta said. “Told me to make peace with Sparda for my transgressions.”

“Well… I suppose it’s not unusual for that sort of thing to be a punishment if my consequence for shooting Sanctus in the face is  _ this,”  _ Dante said, motioning to his stomach.

Arietta’s eyes hung on Dante’s stomach. “I think that decision was independent of what you did to Sanctus,” she said. “They’ve been trying to resurrect Sparda since he died. This is just their latest attempt.”

Dante rubbed his stomach, feeling the slight warmth and the lump from within. “Do you know what’s going to happen with this?”

“They’ll take him away as he’s being born,” Arietta said with a sureness in her voice. “And I mean  _ as  _ he’s being born. Snatch him out once he’s passed a certain point. All the while, your eyes are covered with a cloth and your pleas for any sort of a painkiller are ignored, even as you’re bleeding out.”

Dante’s heart pulsed in his chest as his worst fears were told before him. He gripped his seat with the prosthetic hand.

“You’ll call his name and beg to see him, just once, as you realize that you can’t hear anything from him. He’s not screaming or crying or anything to tell you that he’s alive,” Arietta recounted. “But then you realize the midwife has already left the room, leaving you all alone.”

Dante stared at her as his breathing quickened. His cheeks and forehead grew hot as panic overtook him. The isolation, the exposure, the pain, all of his worst fears realized.  _ “No,”  _ he rasped, barely able to whisper. He clenched his thighs together as he felt acutely aware of his parts.

Arietta stepped over and sat next to him, taking his organic hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she muttered. She rubbed the back of Dante’s hand with her thumb and rested her head against his shoulder.

The two sat for a moment as Dante calmed down. The feeling of itchiness, of the cicadas of dysphoria swarming his body, chirping their damned tune, eventually abated, leaving him with a low hum in the back of his mind, mildly aware of how his stomach felt.

“I should get back to the library,” Dante said. “Before they sound the alarms or something.”

“I need to get back to work too,” Arietta said. She sat up. “I want to help you, your grace.”

“Don’t call me that, please. I’m not special because your stupid religion knocked me up with a demon,” he said. “Just call me Dante.”

“I apologize, sir,” Arietta said. “But I want to make everything comfortable for you as best I can. I can fulfill any request.”

“Did Vergil leave anything behind here?” Dante asked. “I just- I feel so damn homesick. I miss my girlfriends… I’ve been missing my brother for years…”

“He just left behind Nero and me,” Arietta said quietly. “My apologies.”

“No, it’s okay,” Dante said. He got off of the bench. “They can’t punish me if I talk to you, right?”

“They punish  _ me,”  _ Arietta said. “No food for a night if someone talks to me.”

“Then come to me in private. I’ll keep you company,” Dante said. “I know I’m not Vergil, but I… I don’t want to be alone. Everyone else is here to hurt me, but I trust you. Which is…  _ definitely _ a foolish idea.” His face heated up and he wiped his hand over his watering eyes. “Maybe this is all one big conspiracy out to get me! You’re gaining my trust and then it’ll just be another screw dug into my back!”

“I don’t know how to convince you that I’m willing to help, but just know that I do wish for the best for you,” Arietta said. She took Dante’s hands and looked in his eyes. “I refuse to leave you in isolation.”


	7. Grace & Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face returns to Dante.

Days went by. Dante was able to steal away during the duller moments and hide with Arietta in a quiet spot. His stomach grew bigger by the day, and he was now sure he felt definite movements. The infection worsened.

One morning, Dante’s entire back and legs felt so sore and in pain that he couldn’t get up. He groaned and cracked his bones, slowly rolling onto his side. He gasped as pain shot down his right leg, causing him to hyperventilate. He dug his fingers into the fabric of his sheets and kicked out a bit.

_ Was it time? _

No… no, it wouldn’t give him only back pain.

Dante slapped at his nightstand and grabbed Buer’s Bell. He hadn’t used it before. He preferred to stay away from Kyrie as much as possible, but he needed help. The bell’s clapper chimed in the air quietly.

Within a minute, the door opened and Kyrie walked in. “I was summoned,” she said, walking over to Dante’s bedside.

“I’m in pain,” Dante squeaked. “My back-! It hurts… all the way down my leg.”

Kyrie stepped closer. “I can massage it for you,” she said. “Are you able to roll onto your other side?”

“Yeah…” he breathed. Dante did as told and sighed as the pressure shifted.

Kyrie rolled up Dante’s shirt and pulled his pants down a bit, then pressed her thumbs into his back. “My my,” she said. “All these knots.” She rubbed her fingers into the man’s muscles.

Dante relaxed a bit, letting Kyrie massage him. Normally, he wanted her to stay the hell away, but he couldn’t move. This was some sort of relief. He shut his eyes and let out a whimpering moan as the pain settled. “Thank you,” he whined.

“Perhaps a warm bath could help as well,” Kyrie said. “That is, if you can manage to walk to the bath. I can let you soak all alone.”

“Yeah… yeah…” Dante squeezed the pillow in front of him as his muscles relaxed.

Kyrie looked over at the nightstand. “Is this your old girlfriend?”

“Huh?”

The handmaiden held up the photograph of Vergil and Arietta, putting it in front of Dante’s face. He snatched it from her and held it to her. “What about it?”

“That is a dress from the Order. Have you visited us before?” Kyrie asked.

“None of your business,” Dante said. He turned to lay on his back and got up. The pain stayed, but he was able to sit up. He put the photograph on his nightstand. “May I lean on you while we walk?”

“Let me get Credo and Nero,” Kyrie said. “They can help carry you.” She left the room and quickly returned with the two guards, who came in and slung Dante’s arms around their shoulders.

“We can carry you partially, but you  _ do  _ need to walk,” Credo said as the two guards helped Dante out of the room. Dante’s spine ached as the guards helped him down the hall to the bath.

The man didn’t even bother to strip down when he got to the bath. He slipped into the warm bath and let out a loud groan. “Ohh, there it is…”

“We’ll be outside,” Credo said. He put a hand on his sister’s shoulder for a moment, examining the girl’s neck. “How are you doing?”

“I’m alright, thank you,” Kyrie replied. “It was a bit hard for me to get to sleep last night…”

Dante sunk into the water and shut his eyes, drowning out the conversation around him. Soon, he nodded off, lulled back to sleep by the warmth of the bath.

“How would you feel about another guard?” Kyrie asked as she helped Dante dry off.

“A third person following me around all day, along with your two brothers,” Dante grunted.

“No, they’ll take shifts,” Kyrie said. “She’s outside waiting for you.”

“She?” Dante asked, raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen any female knights around.

“Normally, the Order of the Sword employs only male knights. The will of Sparda states that women are to be protected by men, but this guard was the one who allowed us to initiate the rebirth, so Sanctus made an exception,” Kyrie said. “She has been properly vetted and approved as a guard for you.”

Dante pulled his robes on. “If it means Credo and Nero will be off my back for awhile, who cares? Who cares? This is already- this is already absolutely  _ insane.”  _ He left the bath to see a woman waiting outside, donning the typical white and gold robes of the Order’s knights. Her platinum blonde hair was cut in a tight bob, framing a face with a dark tone and a familiar structure to it. 

“Your grace, I would like to introduce you to Gloria, your new guard,” Kyrie said. She placed Buer’s Bell in Dante’s hands. “Made sure to grab that before we left… I’ll be off, then.” The young woman left with a smile on her face.

The new guard waited in silence as Kyrie ran off, looking around the empty hallway.

“Are you going to-?” Dante asked, before Gloria grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the bathroom.

Gloria shut the door and her hair and body shimmered, and a new visage overtook her. Long blonde hair, a pale face, and sharp cheekbones that reminded Dante of his old home, back before everything went down.

“Trish!” Dante gasped.

“I’m here,” she replied, scooping up her boyfriend in a hug. “I’m so sorry it took me so long! They didn’t want me even  _ near  _ you at first!”

“I thought you forgot about me!” Dante cried. He broke down, putting his head on Trish’s shoulder. “It’s been over a  _ month!” _

“I know. We both miss you,” Trish said. She gave her boyfriend a squeeze and stood back, taking in his disheveled appearance. “Lady and I have been living in town while we’re figuring out a way to break you out. They wouldn’t even let me in the palace after the… the  _ ritual.”  _ She motioned to Dante’s stomach. “This is all my fault…”

“Don’t leave me,” Dante said, taking Trish’s hands. “Please. I- Let-Let’s go to my room. I can’t stand being in here…”

Trish nodded and turned back into the disguise of Gloria, escorting Dante outside. “I need to keep a low profile. No chatting, no hand-holding, nothing while we can be seen. If I come into your room, that’ll be suspicious.”

“Then let’s go to the garden. It’s a wide space,” Dante said.

The walk to the garden was agonizing, knowing that one of his two loves was a few paces behind him, but in a mask of a face that was not hers, forced to disregard her like he did with Credo and Nero. Finally, they entered the hedge maze, a place where only the children roamed. They would be fine there.

“Are you alright walking like this, though? Credo said that your spine was hurting,” Trish said, still under the guise of Gloria. “And…  _ that.”  _ She gestured to his stomach.

“It’s barely a nuisance,” Dante lied. It did not obstruct his walking, but the mere feeling of his stomach made his skin itch. “And my back is fine. I think I just woke up really sore today.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Trish said, putting a hand on his back.

Dante looked up at her, but then turned away. “It’s like I’m with a stranger,” he said. “Do you think you could change…?”

“I’m afraid of risking someone seeing me like that,” Trish said. She reached down and took Dante’s hand. “But I’m here, I promise.”

A rosebush blossomed before them, displaying bright blue flowers. Dante leaned his head on Trish’s shoulder. “You’re aware of the other two guards assigned to me, right? Credo and Nero.”

“Yes, I’ve become mildly acquainted with them. At night, I speak to them sometimes,” Trish said.

Dante felt a few tears well in his eyes. “Nero is my nephew.”

_ “Huh?” _

“Vergil visited the island twenty-ish years ago,” Dante said. “I found- I met his girlfriend. She’s one of the girls who wears a red hood. I talked to her, and she confirmed it. She and Vergil were lovers, and she gave birth to Nero. He’s my family. He’s  _ our  _ family!” He squeezed Trish’s hand. “I have to tell him.”

“Will he believe you?” Trish asked. “That’s the question.”

“I… I dunno. But you can see it, right? He  _ looks  _ like Vergil!” Dante said, turning to the woman donning such an unfamiliar face.

Trish stared at her boyfriend and furrowed her eyebrows. “Dante… I never met your brother.”

The man threw his arms around his girlfriend and pulled her close, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “I’m going insane,” he rasped.

“Lady and I are going to get you out of here,” Trish promised. She played with Dante’s hair. “We’ll get you out of here before more horrible things can happen. You have time.” One hand went down and rested on the man’s stomach. “And we can do something about  _ this,  _ too.”

Dante whimpered and shut his eyes. “I just want to wake up from this awful dream.”

“I know,” Trish said. “Did you… did you want something to be done about Nero?”

“He needs to speak to his mother,” Dante said. “And she needs to get out of isolation. I don’t know how, but the entirety of this damn cult needs to know that she didn’t do anything wrong.”

The weeks dragged on, albeit a bit faster now that Dante was able to interact with Trish and remotely speak to Lady through letters. Credo and Nero traded off their shifts with “Gloria” every other day. Dante tried his hardest to interact with Arietta as much as possible. The woman had been through too much isolation and hardship, and he wanted to make it up to her.

He sat in a side room with Arietta, eating a plateful of candies and pastries. The woman was a bit hesitant to try a bite, but with a bit of pushing from Dante, she took a chocolate cannoli and bit in.

“Oh, did Mrs Di Pasqua make these?” Arietta asked. She brushed off some powdered sugar from her top.

“Erm, some older lady insisted I have these while I was on a walk the other day,” Dante said. “She said something about knowing about cravings and stuff and thought that I’d appreciate these. Look, I don’t know anyone’s names except yours, my guards, and Nero’s annoying little girlfriend. And I guess the two scientists.”

“Nero is dating the Cavalio daughter, yes?” Arietta asked. Dante nodded. “Yet he was taken in to be a sibling to them… It is quite strange.”

“Oh my god,  _ thank you,”  _ Dante said. “I thought I was going insane!”

“On one hand, they are not related, but on the other…” Arietta sighed deeply and leaned back in her seat. “I am frustrated. I am so frustrated that I was not there to raise my own son.” She reached out and grabbed a little ball of chocolate ganache and nuts, popping it into her mouth. “Vergil and I shared snacks like these all the time. When we first started dating, he showed me this little biscuit-type of snack that he brought over from the mainland. It was covered in chocolate and he stuck one end between his teeth and offered for me to bite the other end. We kept inching towards each other and eventually we kissed. It was the first time we kissed, actually.”

“I never knew my brother was such a dork,” Dante snickered. “But that sounds so fitting for him. How long did it take for you two to… get together, I guess? I don’t wanna pry.”

“Only a few days. I had seen him on the street once, towering above the rest of the crowd. It was almost distracting how big he was!” Arietta laughed. “I found him again a few days later, having just finished slaughtering a crowd of demons. He got a little cut on his cheek and I offered to clean it with my handkerchief. I wiped his face of the blood, and the wound healed up right away. It was so surreal to me. He didn’t tell me right away that he was the son of Sparda, so I had no way of…  _ understanding  _ why he healed like that.”

Dante nodded slowly while eating a handful of chocolates. The parasite within him wriggled and writhed, pushing up against his taut skin. In the past few days, his stomach had felt colder rather than warmer. He swallowed his food. “Erm… can I ask a dumb slightly off-topic question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember, when you were carrying Nero, if you felt… a change in temperature, if that made sense?” Dante asked. “Like your stomach felt like it was pulsating heat or kinda cold? Is this normal?”

“I can’t say I ever experienced that,” Arietta said. “All I remember is that he kept me up at night with his moving, but during the day he was calm.”

“It might be a demon thing,” Dante theorized. He ran a finger down his belly. “This is going too fast, isn’t it? It’s only been less than three months and I’m already like this.”

“Demon thing,” Arietta repeated. “Nero was born a month early. Perhaps those with the blood of demons are born sooner. You wouldn’t happen to know your mother’s experience, would you? I-I remember Vergil saying that she died when he wasn’t even ten years old.”

“No, she didn’t mention anything like that,” Dante said. “Dunno why a mother would talk to her kid about her experience- whatever.”

“May I ask you a question that may be… uncomfortable?” Arietta asked.

“Nothing can be as uncomfortable as my current living situation,” Dante huffed, before cracking a bit of a smile.

“Vergil had once described you as a sister that became his brother, a-and you’re- right now, you’re carrying a child…” Arietta said. “Were you a girl at some point in your life?”

“Yeah, biologically, I’m female, but in my heart I’m a man, so I’ve been trying to look the part,” Dante said. “I actually figured it out when I was a child. Vergil helped me pick out my name.”

“I didn’t know someone could do that,” Arietta said quietly. “And you chose this?”

“No. It’s- it’s a persistent nagging in my brain, I guess you could say. Viewing myself as a woman is wholly uncomfortable and I hate every second of it,” Dante said. He let out an uncomfortable chuckle as his walls of self-control broke down. “And this. A  _ pregnancy.  _ This is my biggest fear. It’s like I’m being eaten from the inside out. My mind is constantly nagging me and telling me about how this isn’t right! This child - whether it be my father or some other demon, or even just a normal human baby - I keep thinking it’s going to claw out of me, mangle my genitals, warp me into something I’m not, all while the whole world is exposed to me and seeing what a  _ monster  _ I am. This is going to fucking  _ kill  _ me, Arietta.” He stared into the woman’s eyes with a manic gaze. “This is going to kill me…”

Arietta put her hand on Dante’s. “The Order is corrupt and awful, but they’ll treat you well, I assure you,” she said. “Death is a punishment unheard of. For what you did to Sanctus, you may be sent to exile like I did, but they will not kill you, I promise. They’ll ensure you’ll survive the birth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is also in reference to a set of enemies from Bayonetta lol. I finished that game recently. I'm so bad at it but it's so much fun!  
> Dante's back pains are in reference to MY back pains. I've been having issues with slipped disc and it's pressing on a nerve and I'm just in a lot of pain every day. Dante himself doesn't have a hernia, but it was cathartic to write about someone else going through it.
> 
> Also Mrs Di Pasqua is in reference to an OC of mine who marries a man named Dante. I named that OC before I played Devil May Cry.


	8. Autonomy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante has a chat with Arietta.

“Will you take part in the Summer Sunrise Ceremony on Monday?” Kyrie asked.

Dante lay in the tub with his head out of the water, eyes shut. Beneath the soapy surface of the water, he could see his stomach, now with a definite roundness to it, and chose instead to ignore it. “The what now?”

Kyrie poured water on Dante’s head, washing the shampoo out of his hair, and kneaded his scalp. “The Order of the Sword recognizes the summer solstice as an important holiday, and as such we hold a celebration. Just as others stay up for New Year’s Eve, we stay up until the dawn breaks and have a party throughout the day. And as such, on the night before, we usually sleep in until one or two in the afternoon so we may have the energy for the upcoming celebration.”

“Just sounds like an excuse to sleep in and get drunk,” Dante said.

“You will be forbidden from drinking alcohol during the celebration,” Kyrie said. “Drinking is harmful to-”

“Don’t.”

“Sanctus is offering for you to be an honored guest if you attend. The child of Sparda, carrying the lord within you…”

“What will that give me?” Dante asked. “Besides more eyes on me.”

“Usually only Sanctus gives his usual sermon, but he would not be opposed if you wrote your own little speech,” Kyrie said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the man said dismissively. “I don’t know what I-” His sentence was interrupted as a pain shot through his midsection for the briefest of moments. The man had been stabbed, shot, bitten, set on fire, frozen, electrocuted, any injury imaginable, but that momentary pain was too much for him to handle. His breath stopped as he curled in on himself. Kyrie’s fingers stopped massaging Dante’s scalp for that moment.

“Do you need to see the doctors?” Kyrie asked.

_ “I’m fine…”  _ the man squeaked. The pain let go and his body relaxed. “I don’t know what that was…”

“Well, it’s not yet time for the birth,” Kyrie said. “Agnus informed me that, by his calculations, you should have two to three more months left.”

Two to three-

_ Shit. _

Trish and Lady needed to get going on their plan.

“How does he know how long a demon takes to be born?” Dante asked, his voice still full of weakness.

“Studying them,” Kyrie said. “In the deepest parts of the laboratory, Agnus and his team have captured demons to test, and one such test is studying their reproduction. It is all a guess, however, based on how the development is going. Each demon is different, and some demons seem to have spontaneous births… He kept talking on and on about it.”

Dante bit his lip and kicked at the water for a moment as his hand went to his stomach. “When it is time… where will I be? Down in the laboratory or in my bed. Or is there a hospital wing?”

“I couldn’t tell you the answer,” Kyrie said.

“Are you hiding it from me or do you just not know?” Dante asked.

“Mmm,” she hummed.

“So you’re hiding it from me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

A pit formed in Dante’s stomach.

The bath concluded and Dante dressed for the day, dismissing Kyrie. He went about his normal routine. Breakfast, library, lunch, garden. As he sat on his normal bench, he saw Arietta walk along her normal path from the main part of the palace to the washhouse, carrying her basket of dirty clothes. She looked over at him and gave him a smile, before continuing on her way. “Gloria” was to take over the guard shift that night for dinner up until midnight.

Nero sat across the walkway from him, his arms crossed and one leg kicked up and crossed over his other. He raised an eyebrow as he saw Arietta, but then blew a stray hair out of his face and went back to dozing off. Dante saw Arietta turn her head, stealing a glance at her son. His heart ached as he saw how much Arietta yearned to be with her son once more.

Dante sat on his bed, waiting for Arietta to enter any minute now. He had told her near dinner that she may join him for a quick chat, so long as she didn’t get caught. He drew the curtains and sat under the canopied bed, resting his hand on his stomach. He winced as he felt the beast within, growing ever so slightly each day… Two to three months, Kyrie had said. He wondered how much his body would be warped and distorted before the end of it, to whatever end the Order had planned for him.

The door opened and Arietta slipped inside, her face as red as her hood. She put down the hood and sat on the edge of the bed. “What did you want to see me about?”

“I just wanted some company,” Dante said. “Trish an’ I are afraid to talk, in case the other guards see, and she hasn’t been able to leave the palace to retrieve letters from Lady… It’s lonely.”

“Who-?” Arietta asked, a bit lost for words.

“My girlfriends,” Dante said. “Trish is my guard right now. She can change forms.”

“Ah.” Arietta walked around the room, finding the photo on the desk. She picked up a few of the blue rose petals from on the table, playing with them in her palm. “I really am surprised that the records-keeper did not remove this from our archives.”

“What’s with that, anyway? The photo album?” Dante asked.

“The Order of the Sword keeps a community effort in recording our history,” Arietta said. “We keep a scribe to record all of our ongoings and such. The history is written down in big tomes of details, but mostly we value photographic evidence ever since we were given the gift of photography, and records of jobs, births, deaths… I was able to contribute this photo of myself and Vergil via donation before I had Nero.”

“They didn’t care to remove it?” Dante asked.

“I was never one to submit photos for the yearly albums, so they didn’t bother to look,” Arietta said. She sat down at the foot of the bed.

“That birth record. It said your name and Vergil’s, but then they blotted it out,” Dante said. “Why write it down only to immediately dismiss it?”

“Now  _ that,  _ I cannot answer. I really am unsure,” Arietta said.

“Vergil’s name was only put down with an S, not his full last name… Why was that?”

“Nobody would believe him if he said that his surname was Sparda,” Arietta said. “And he was a guest to the Order anyway. Though I do wonder, if he returned, would they have amended the entry?”

A lump formed in Dante’s throat. He remembered reaching out for his brother as Vergil fell into the abyss of a portal, enraptured by his obsession for strength. Dante just didn’t try hard enough. He could have pulled Vergil out, let him return to Fortuna, save the poor girl from a life of exile, and raise their son together.

Vergil was right. Dante wasn’t strong enough to protect anything. Not Vergil. Not his girlfriends. Not even himself. The demon growing within him was proof.

“Sometimes…” Dante broke the silence. “I- A little voice nags at me, and when I’m laying in bed at night, I start to wonder…  _ maybe I can handle this. _ I should explain. E-Even though the actual birth- that whole… that whole idea, it’s absolutely terrifying to me, but I’m- I’ve been able to separate that from what’s within me.”

Arietta tilted her head slightly to the side. “Like… separate the child from the idea of birth?”

“Yeah. I can see it as isolated things. There’s a parasite eating away at me and it’ll claw out of me and kill me, and that’s a separate issue from the fact that in… however many months, I’ll have a child,” Dante said. “And… sometimes I wonder if I’m  _ connected  _ to that idea, but then I feel awful and conflicted because my dysphoria goes off the rails and eats away at me like acid just thinking about this pregnancy.”

“It feels like you’re not supposed to be connected to the idea of having a child because you fear their birth?” Arietta asked.

“Yeah. Like someone will judge me. A-And I’m not the type of guy to be concerned with others’ perceptions of me,” Dante said. “This feels completely new to me.”

“It might be the hormones, coupled with your perception of yourself,” Arietta suggested. “I can’t say.”

“It’s… it’s not bad that I might want to be a father, right?” Dante asked.

“Not at all,” Arietta replied. “You can hate this pregnancy to the ends of the earth but still want to love and be a father to a child. But… wouldn’t it be your father? This child, I mean.”

“I don’t believe it’s him,” Dante said with conviction, staring up at her as his chest puffed out a bit. “This child is not a reincarnation of my father. I feel it.”

The two sat for a few minutes in the quiet. Arietta told Dante little stories about herself and Vergil for a while until she yawned and stretched, saying she had to leave. “Tomorrow I clean the baths,” she said. “I need to get up early for that.”

Dante got up and walked her to his door. “Thank you,” he said, holding a hand on her back as she flipped up her hood. “Hey… when I get out of here, you can come with. We’ll find a way to get you out.”

“This is my home…” Arietta said, biting her lip.

“I know, but you’re a prisoner in it,” Dante said. “Just think about it, alright?” They stepped outside of the room, just in time to hear the pattering of footsteps approaching their wing.

“I need to go,” Arietta whispered. She gave Dante a quick hug. “Thank you, you’ve saved me enough already.” She turned and pulled up her dress over her feet to walk off, just in time for the shadows of a guard to turn the corner.

_ “No!”  _ Dante whispered in a panic. He wanted to reach out and help, but it was too late.

“She should still be in there,” Kyrie’s voice sounded across the halls.

Arietta squeaked and pressed herself up against the wall as Kyrie and Nero rounded the corner, holding her hands behind herself and bowing her head.

“Just where I left you, huh?” Kyrie said. “She went into the Incubator’s room! I saw her talking with him!”

Dante left the safety of the doorway and walked over. “She was invited! Why are you snooping in on my business?”

“Those in exile are not to be engaged with! The will of Sparda dictates that!” Kyrie yelled. “I saw her go in there and  _ fraternize  _ with you! Day after day I see her in the same room as you, I hear you two laugh, and you even allowed her to have sugars and spices!”

Nero looked between his girlfriend and Dante. “Is this true?”

“I allowed it,” Dante said sternly.

“Please, I need to return to my chambers-” Arietta started.

_ “You are not to speak!”  _ Kyrie snapped shrilly. She turned her attention to Nero. “I’ve been seeing her steal glances at everyone! This woman is completely insolent and disrespectful of all our laws!”

“Dante,” Nero said with a weak voice. “You admit to witnessing this woman in exile speak to you?”

“I allowed her to,” Dante repeated. He stood tall, staring directly into Nero’s eyes. “I gave her permission. She is my guest. I have the authority to give such commands, no? I am, after all, your Incubator.”

“You are merely a guest in our palace. You have authority on your own autonomy, but not our laws,” Kyrie warned.

The sentence hit him in the chest like another blade through his heart.  _ "On my own autonomy?!" _ Dante spat back. "Look at me! How could you forget what you've done? What you ALL did to me?!"

“Our laws are not under your judgement,” Nero said. He pulled a length of rope out of his pocket. “Ma’am, if you may turn around.”

“Nero, no, you can’t-!” Dante started, but looked down at Arietta turning to face the wall, holding her hands behind her back.

Nero was already tying her hands together. He grabbed her and pulled her away from the wall. “...Kyrie is right, your limits extend only to you,” he said. He held his hand on Arietta’s wrist as he led her away.

The mother and son walked down the hall in silence. Nero took Arietta down several flights of stairs in utter silence. The woman trembled in his grip as he held her. Nero opened the door to the prison, a largely unused place in the palace.

“You are to wait here until your final judgement,” Nero said, opening a cell. He pushed Arietta inside and stared past her at the wall. “Your arms.”

Arietta turned and laid her back against the bars of the cell. As Nero undid her bindings, she slipped a blue rose petal into his hands. Nero pulled back, holding the bindings and the petal.

“Nero…” The woman said. “Please.”

Nero dropped the petal and turned, leaving the dungeons.


	9. The Illusions of Choice and Morality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico fixes up Dante's arm, and Trish delivers a letter.

“Alright, this sh-should do it,” Nico mumbled, finishing up the final screws on attaching Dante’s new arm. “How does it feel?”

“I can’t feel it,” Dante grumbled. It had been a few days since Arietta’s imprisonment. He kicked himself every night for getting the girl caught. He prayed that nothing had been done to her, but he didn’t dare ask Nero. He flexed his fingers in front of Nico, showing off the range of motion of his fingers. “But they work.”

Nico slid a ceramic mug full of milk across the table. “Try picking this up.”

Dante reached out and picked up the mug. The pads of the fingers on the artificial hand had a malleability to it, just as Nico had noted when she showed him her first prototype. “It works,” he said, bringing the cup to his lips. “Are we done here?”

Nico looked around the side office of the laboratory that the two sat in. Her eyes lingered at the closed door. “You can finish your drink,” she said. “But yes, w-we are done.”

“I’m fine,” Dante said, pushing the cup back to her. “I prefer strawberry anyway.”

“Please, for your health,” Nico said. “You need to keep up eating healthy. Carrying a child is a high-stress situation and there’s a whole litany of health issues associated with it, not to mention carrying a-a-a demon child… It’s all for your benefit.”

_ Your  _ benefit.

Not that of the  _ parasite. _

Dante finished up the cup of milk. Something landed on his tongue, making him choke. He spat into his hand, and out fell the petal of a blue rose, just as Nico left the room.

The young woman waited for Dante to take the elevator back up to the surface before she grabbed a white metal box and a small burlap sack, and began her trip to the dungeons. A sticky note was plastered on the box.

_ Nicoletta - please administer these three shots to the prisoner in cell 2. She is to be checked on every morning, noon, and evening to see the effects. _

The woman’s throat closed up as she descended the steps. Prisoners were a rarity in the Order. Usually only strangers to the island who committed their first crimes were imprisoned. Native Fortunans were set to social exile. For a person born in the Order to be imprisoned, they had to have committed a serious crime, and from what it seemed, Arietta was just an average resident of the island.

“Hello?” Nico asked. “How have you been doing?”

Arietta looked up at Nico, then tilted her head to the side. “They’ve been feeding me moldy food,” she said, motioning to the half-eaten bread she left near the front of the cell. “It’s been giving me a stomachache. I’ve just stopped eating.”

Nico sighed and unlocked the cell door, and sat next to Arietta on her bed. “Lucky for you, I brought some breakfast,” she said with a smile, taking out some fresh fruit and a sandwich from her bag.

“Thank you, Nico,” Arietta smiled. She took a nervous bite of an apple. “How is Nero?”

“I’ve been avoiding him,” she mumbled. “I need to do my work,  _ and  _ my father is having me do his tests as well, so I haven’t seen much of your son.”

“Must be a lot of work, then,” Arietta said. She coughed as her voice cleared. “Are you not afraid of getting caught in here?”

“I’ve been put in charge of my father’s…  _ experiments _ . The testing phase, specifically,” Nico explained. “Speaking of.” She opened the metal box and pulled out the three needles inside. Each had a solution in them. One colored the yellow of oil, the second a pale blue, and the third a deep black. Nico approached the toilet in Arietta’s cell and injected them down the drain, and flushed them away. “We are not going through with these.”

“What will they have done…?” Arietta asked.

“Turn you into a demonic hybrid,” Nico said. “Father has been able to condense weaponry and the transmutation of… he calls it the sheer essence of combat, but that isn’t the correct term. Has to do something with demons. You’ll become a mindless beast quicker than if he were to fuse you with the blood of demons via traditional alchemy.”

Arietta stopped chewing, staring at the young woman with wild eyes. “Why me?”

“He needs test subjects,” Nico said, putting the needles back into the box. “The Ascension Ceremony takes far too long and my father wanted to perfect and streamline the process.”

The prisoner nodded slowly as she continued her meal. Her stomach erupted in a rumble of hunger. “Ugh… I remember when the first Ascension Ceremony was held. It was a momentous occasion. Everyone was there to see it happen. Giocoso Cavalio was the first one, yes… It was soon after your mother  _ disappeared,  _ as they said.”

“I saw the records,” Nico said bitterly. “Father tested on her, I know.”

Arietta put her hand on Nico’s shoulder and pulled her close, rubbing the young woman’s back. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He was an awful man. In the months leading up to exile, he was especially nasty to me, but your mother was always kind. She would be proud of you.”

“I’m assisting in such vile acts,” Nico mumbled. “She would hate me.”

“By refusing to turn me, you’ve proven yourself as being greater than your father,” Arietta said. She gave Nico a kiss on the forehead. “There’s no need to worry.”

Walks in the garden were harder now that Dante had to deal with such a heavy stomach, but he needed some sort of reprieve, especially now that Arietta was gone. The hedge maze had been mapped inside his mind from dozens of times of exploring it.

Trish walked behind him silently, holding a letter in her hands. As they sat under a gazebo, she passed the paper to her boyfriend. “I was able to return to Lady the other night,” she said.

Dante unfolded the note.

_ I miss you, you big goofy idiot. Trish and I are figuring out a plan of how to get you out of there. Morrison says the shop is fine, for the most part. I mean, no electricity and water being used means no bills but the monthly rent. _

_ In any case, I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to get you out of there. Your weapons are being taken care of. I’ve been doing some well-needed tune ups on your guns- _

“When did she get my guns?” Dante asked.

“Oh! Yes, I was able to retrieve them,” Trish said. “Just a few days ago.”

_ -and once we get home, maybe we should finally get around to teaching you how to properly take care of them. _

_ In regards to… the issue… I don’t mind taking care of a child. Being a mother alongside Trish and you being the father of a child that the three of us would have together is something I am not opposed to. In fact, it’s something I would welcome with open arms. We can make this work. We  _ _ will _ _ make this work, I promise. _

_ The rain hasn’t stopped for me. It won’t stop until you’re safe with us. _

_ -your lovely Lady _

The guards changed at dinner. Trish left with a promise that she and Lady would figure out something. Credo and Nero came in, the elder holding an envelope. “Father Sanctus cordially invites you to speak at the Summer Sunrise Celebration,” Credo said, handing Dante the envelope. “He requires an answer from you by tonight.”

Dante pulled out a sheet of paper with a fancy gold-trimmed invitation. He skimmed it over, reading about being an honored speaker and all sorts of other junk that made his eyes glaze over. “Do I need to prepare a script, or can I just wing it?” Dante asked. He glanced between Credo and Nero, noticing that Nero no longer wore a blue rose on his uniform.

“Just say some niceties about rebirth and the blessings of Sparda,” Credo sighed. “Knowing you, you’ll want to keep it short, yes? As long as you say something, it’ll be welcomed.”

“I accept,” Dante said. He took a bite of his dinner. “But I’ll only come to the celebration right before dawn breaks. I’m not staying up all night.”

“Fair enough.”


	10. At First Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Order of the Sword celebrates the summer solstice.

Dante lay curled up in his room as the clock ticked. Two hours until dawn, and he hadn’t slept a wink. The child within him tumbled and writhed. “There there,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “I know, you must be tired…”

_ He was talking to it. _

_ Why the hell was he talking to it? _

The man rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. The clock continued its infernal ticking. He got up and put his slippers on, then walked to the door quietly. With a click, he opened it to see Trish still standing post. “Hey,” he whispered.

“Thought you’d be out like a brick,” she responded. She slipped inside the room and closed the door, her guise changing back to her true appearance. “Is something on your mind?”

“I’m going crazy,” he said, sitting on the bed cross-legged. The extra space between his legs and knees made for a perfect area for his stomach to lay. He put his organic hand on his stomach, as his prosthetic was still laying on the bedside table. The photo of Vergil and Arietta was put inside one of the drawers for safety, just in case someone saw he had a photo of the prisoner. “I started talking to him.”

“Him?”

“The-  _ this,”  _ Dante said, pointing to his stomach. “The baby- parasite- whatever the hell they put inside me.”

Trish sat up next to Dante and leaned against him. “Why is that a problem to you?” Her tone was calm, not accusatory, as she tried to work things out with him.

“It’s wrong. This whole situation,” Dante said. “I shouldn’t consider this to be a  _ child,  _ Trish.”

“If you do consider it a child, then what will happen?” Trish asked carefully.

“I… I don’t want to. This is a parasite eating away at me. It isn’t a  _ baby.  _ I shouldn’t be having a child.”

“I know,” Trish said. She combed her hand through Dante’s hair. It had grown out a bit, past the nape of his neck now. “What is your mind saying?”

Dante looked down at his stomach as he petted it, feeling the wriggling of fluttering movements. “Arietta told me awhile back about how they took Nero away before she could hold him,” he said. “And… I don’t want that.”

“You don’t want what? For this to be taken from you, or for you to hold it?” Trish asked.

“I spent this long in suffering. I want to see what I’ve created,” Dante said. He grabbed her hand and put it on his stomach. “It’s… it’s been feeling more real. I made this. I’m  _ making  _ this. This is  _ mine.  _ I… I’m not doing any sort of rebirth of my father because this is  _ my  _ child.”

“So… you want this?” Trish asked.

“I don’t want this to be a burden on us. You, me, and Lady. Raising a child together…”

“It’d be hard, but we’ve faced hardships before. All three of us have been through worse,” Trish said, repeating the same words that helped win Dante over. “Whatever you want to do, Lady and I will be by your side.”

The two sat together, holding each other, as they waited for the blue hour to start. It was the first time in months that they could embrace in such a way, but emptiness still set in.

“I think it’s time to go,” Trish said. “We can’t be late.” She got out of bed and changed to her likeness of Gloria, and helped Dante get dressed. “Normally Nero’s girlfriend would help you, right?”

“Yeah,” Dante replied. He slipped on a special set of golden robes that had been left for him the night prior, then grabbed the photograph of Vergil and Arietta along with Nero’s birth record from the drawer.

“What’s that for?”

“You’ll see.”

Dante and Trish made their way out to the gardens, where a large crowd had gathered. As he passed through, the people parted a path for him, but reached out and threw flowers upon him. A few small children ran in front of him, tossing flower petals at his feet. A platform had been erected where Sanctus sat atop a throne with Credo by his side, with a small table next to them, holding a bottle of champagne and some chocolates and candies, and next to that table was a smaller, cushioned chair, empty and waiting for its occupant. Dante struggled to ascend the steps and sat on his own throne.

“Good morning, Father Sanctus,” Trish said, nodding her head.

“You decided to grace us with your presence, Incubator,” Sanctus said with a creak in his voice. “Have you decided to speak?”

“I have a few words I wanted to say, yes,” Dante said. “When will I be able to speak?”

“Right as the sun rises upon our loving Order,” Sanctus said. “I bless you with your decision to give us your wisdom.”

Dante nodded and shrugged it off, looking at the plate of candies. “Is this for me?”

“It is for the both of us. You may have some,” Sanctus said.

Dante reached over and snagged a chocolate truffle, looking back and forth between Sanctus and Credo. “Where’s Nero?”

“He is allowed a day off tonight,” Credo said. “He’s somewhere off partying...”

Dante examined the list of people sitting around lazily, tired out after a whole night of partying and dancing. Nero sat on a bench, dozing off. He kept his right hand - the hand stolen from Dante - clasped around a drink that was spilling onto the ground, while next to him sat a girl with brown hair, tan skin, and thick glasses. At first, Dante did not recognize Nico out of her uniform and without the braid, but after a squint, he could discern her face. Nero’s head bobbed to the side and landed on Nico’s shoulder. The sensation jostled him awake and he sat upright, looking at Nico with a glance of surprise. He jumped from his seat and left the bench just as Nico noticed, and wove off into the crowd, reuniting with Kyrie a few steps away.

“Father Sanctus, may I have a moment with you?” Dante asked.

“It is almost time,” Sanctus said. “Another day, perhaps.” He stood up, picking up a tall, golden staff from the ground. On the head of the staff held a brilliant transparent jewel with a hundred facets. The crowd ceased their talking and looked upward. “You may speak now, Incubator.”

Dante stood up shakily and looked over at the crowd. All eyes were on the two of them as the dawn began to break, casting long shadows over the onlookers. Dante cleared his throat. “O-On this day of celebration,” he started, regretting not writing a speech. “I… I come with a message from the Lord Sparda, regarding a wrongdoing that was supposedly committed in this Order of the Sword.” He swallowed as he took the photo and birth record from his pocket.

Sanctus raised an eyebrow. “Incubator…” he said quietly.

“There walks another child of Sparda within our community,” Dante continued, his eyes focusing on Nero. “The maiden Arietta Angelo was unjustly exiled and imprisoned for supposed crimes of impurity, but she bore a child descended from Sparda himself. It is perhaps the holiest thing a woman of her kind could do.”

Whispers flitted among the crowd, repeating Arietta’s name over and over again, along with questions.

_ “Who is the child?” _ A voice cried out.

_ “Where is your proof?”  _ Another yelled.

Dante held out the birth record and the photograph. “I spoke to Arietta herself, and here she is photographed with Vergil, son of Sparda, my brother! This record states that the boy Nero Cavalio, first named as Nero Angelo, was born to Arietta and Vergil-”

The sun crested the horizon, breaking its rays into the air. The crystal atop Sanctus’ staff scattered rainbows across the crowd. Nero’s white hair reflected all colors, blossoming into a halo of light.

_ “Nero!” _

_ “He bears holy blood!” _

_ “The heir to Sparda!” _

The crowd erupted in a frenzy. Young priestesses-in-training swarmed Nero, adorning him with flowers. Kyrie threw her arms around him, locking his lips in a loving kiss. He was pulled from her arms and hoisted into the air by the cacophony of maidens.

_ “He must be cleansed!” _

_ “He will be the one to raise the reborn Lord Sparda!” _

Nero gasped and flailed about as he was pulled inside the palace. He could barely keep his eyes focused on the girls as he was pulled into the bathhouse. His robes were stripped down and he was slipped into a cold bath. From beneath the water, he could see Kyrie’s smiling face from the surface, with the other girls that had pulled him away grabbing his arms and resurfacing him.

Hundreds of hands scrubbed him down with soaps and oils. Flower petals were tossed in the water by a girl with a wicker-woven basket. He gasped for air as water was poured on his head, flattening his feathery-soft hair to his head.

“The two of you will forego the regular courting,” an older woman’s voice said. Nero craned his neck and looked over the shoulders of two young women to see a high elder speaking to Kyrie off to the side. “I shall speak to Sanctus about marriage arrangements, though I suspect he is coming to the same conclusion as I.”

“Thank you, Sister,” Kyrie said. She stared lovingly as Nero was cleansed of his sins.

Dante stared at the cheering crowd, falling back into his seat. “Is Arietta going to be exonerated?” He turned his head to Sanctus. “She doesn’t deserve exile and imprisonment for giving birth to a descendant of your lord, right?”

“Credo,” Sanctus said. “It shall be arranged that the boy and the holy chorister are to be wed. Understand?”

“Yes, Father,” Credo said. “Today?”

“No, during the birth of Lord Sparda. They shall take him in directly afterwards,” Sanctus determined. “See to it that all arrangements are all set. The birth will approach us faster than we think.”

“What do you mean  _ during  _ the birth?” Dante argued.

“Nero will be relieved of his junior guard duties,” Sanctus continued. “He is to prepare his lodgings for raising the Lord.”

“Stop focusing on that!” Dante yelled. “You imprisoned an innocent woman! Why is it that Nero gets all this praise for being a descendant of Sparda but Arietta is condemned for giving birth to him?!”

“Gloria, bring the Incubator back to her quarters,” Sanctus concluded.

A blade ran through both Dante and Trish.  _ “Fuck you!”  _ Dante seethed, to which Sanctus merely glanced at him and looked back at the crowd.  _ “I hope you rot and a demon pisses on your corpse!” _

Trish put a hand on Dante’s shoulder. “Come with me, please,” she said. Her hand trembled and her body quivered to its core. She pulled Dante away and helped him down the stairs.

As the two made their way out of the crowd, Dante felt his body shake as well. He stopped, gripping Trish’s arms. He doubled over and retched. Bloody vomit stained the stone pathway, seeping into the cracks. He whined and cried, emptying his stomach.

Nico approached the two and helped Dante to his feet. “I have some medicine for him,” she said. “But for now he should go to his bed.”

The young scientist helped the guard bring Dante up to his room. His head spun as he hit the bed, laying on his side so as not to squish his stomach. Nico put the back of her hand on his forehead. “No fever. That’s good,” she said. “It might be stress.” Her voice trailed off.

“I am going to kill Sanctus,” Dante whispered as he pulled his blanket around him. “I am going to destroy him. All I wanted was for Arietta to be safe…” His stomach turned and he convulsed, curling in on himself.

“She is,” Nico said. “She’s down in the dungeons, but I’m bringing her food every day. She was to be experimented on but I haven’t been administering the drugs.”

“She’s unharmed?” Dante asked.

“She’s safe, yes,” Nico promised. The girl felt a sob catch in her throat. “I can’t do that to anyone. I promise, I’ll protect her for as long as I can.”

“We’re going to take her with us once we leave,” Trish promised.

Nico looked up at Trish in surprise. “You…? You’re going to leave? With him?” The girl squinted and examined her face. “I-I’ve never seen you around here, until you became a guard to the- to Dante…”

“Can you keep a secret, kid?” Trish asked. “Considering you’re already disobeying your father and everything.”

“I hate him,” Nico admitted in a panicked whisper. “He’s a monster. This entire Order is filled with either blind fanatics or disgusting tyrants! You should know! You-you’re a guard!”

Trish grinned and her disguise changed. “Then you’re on our side,” she said. “Dante and I are devil hunters, and our girlfriend is hiding out in the city. We were here to destroy Sanctus, but now… Now we just want to leave with our lives.”

“Take me with you,” Nico said immediately with tears in her eyes. She grabbed Trish’s hands as a few hairs flew out of place. “Please! I’ll do anything! I just need to leave this damned island.”

“Of course,” Trish said. “Dante, you okay with that?”

“As long as we leave,” the man said. He let out a hiss, followed by a drawn-out groan of pain and some coughing. Blood sputtered on the blanket.

Trish walked over and tilted Dante’s head up, wiping a bit of blood from his lips. “And we will leave, I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ceremony was directly inspired by the Summer Sun Celebration in MLP: FiM, I admit. I miss MLP so much.


	11. And As The Day Approaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nero makes a choice.

A month had passed since the celebration. Preparations were already set for the marriage of Nero and Kyrie, and a wing of Fortuna Castle was readied for their eventual move-in and raising of the reborn Sparda. All that was left was the actual birth, and the dress.

Kyrie stood in front of a mirror as a tailor measured her. Nearby sat Nero, sword in one hand, as he glanced at his fiancée every so often, then looked away. It had been a few days since the two had seen each other. Kyrie was reading up on the scriptures of Sparda, learning about his physiology, wants, needs, and general demon caring tips, while Nero was busy slaughtering every last collection of demons in the surrounding area. Thankfully, since the actual conception of the reborn god, the guards were on higher alert. Rotations were sent out more frequently to clear out the areas.

“This is everything I ever wanted,” Kyrie breathed as the tailor showed off a long white dress to her, adorned with gold and red trim. “Nero, we’re going to start the rest of our  _ life  _ together! And I’ll be able to bear more descendants of Sparda! Isn’t it amazing?”

“More- more descendants?” Nero asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought we just had to… y’know, take care of Dante’s baby.”

“Yes, but we would also have children of our own,” Kyrie said. “It will be awhile until the Lord grows to his full age - or not. I mean, I don’t know how long it takes for a demon to grow up. Maybe it’ll take a year, maybe ten years, maybe he’ll be like a regular human! Oh, imagine that, our children growing up practically as siblings to the Dark Knight Sparda.”

“When… did we agree on having kids?” Nero asked. His stomach twisted and danced. He tried swallowing a ball of spit, but the sensation made his head spin.

“It would be improper if we didn’t have any,” Kyrie smiled. She spun around in her dress. “Ooh, look!”

Nero looked up to see his future wife twirling around in a white and gold wedding dress. “That’s nice.” He looked away, feeling his whole body ache with unease and distress.

“This thing will be ruined once it’s time, though,” Kyrie said. “The blood of Sparda shall bless this dress, I hope.”

“I think we should wait,” Trish said. She sat in the abandoned house that she and Lady had been camping out in since Dante was captured. “It kills me to say it, but I don’t know how we’re going to lug Dante out of there while he’s like this.”

Lady sighed as she set a fire under the teapot. “But it’ll be harder to break three people and a baby out of a heavily-fortified castle  _ and  _ off this island,” she said. “Dante did say he wants to keep this…  _ reincarnation  _ as his child, yeah?”

Trish ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah. I’m just thinking about mobility. He’s already huge! It’s only been, what, six months?”

“Not even,” Lady said. Both women had bags under their eyes from the stress and lack of sleep. Their bed was cold without Dante laying somewhere, warming it up with his body. Though Trish was a demon as well, she did not emanate the same heat that he did, only a bit of static electricity on particularly dry nights, unlike Dante, who was a living space heater. But the heat didn’t matter. The lack of his presence made their bodies ache. “I found the keys to one of the boats at the port, but it’ll be a bit of a trek from the castle  _ to _ the port to begin with.”

“Maybe Nico knows something. A secret pathway,” Trish suggested.

“Nico?”

“The young scientist girl. She’s coming with us,” Trish said. “She’s already caring for Arietta and she just seems desperate.”

“How do you know she’s not conspiring against us?” Lady asked. “Putting your trust in this girl…” The woman sighed and ran a hand through her short hair. “I’m sorry, I-”

“No, it-it’s stressful, I know.” Trish sat down and put her hand over Lady’s. “I think we can trust her. I don’t think someone as desperate as her would… would beg so hard as she did.”

The two sat for a while as they waited for the tea to boil. The kettle whistled, and the both of them got up at the same time. Lady leaned against Trish, her odd-colored eyes half-lidded. “So… the three of us are going to have a child?”

“It seems so.”

“I just hope everything will end up well. I don’t care who we’re bringing along with so long as everyone is safe.”

Nero descended the marble stairs to the prisons. All day, he had been around Kyrie and minor holy women of the Order as they fixed up a wedding dress for her. Hearing her talk about how much of a princess she felt like was overwhelming. Whenever he thought of the wedding, a lump would form in his throat.

When did he even start dating Kyrie, anyway? They were raised together… Or was this destiny?

He entered the dungeon and stalked the cells. All were empty but one, with a woman in a white dress and a red hood tucked away in a corner. The hood was down and around her shoulders, with her messy auburn hair in knots. “Excuse me,” Nero said, stepping on some rose petals on the ground that had long since dried out and shriveled up.

The woman shuddered and turned, looking at her visitor. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“Mother…?” Nero asked.

Arietta got off her bed and ran to the cell bars. “Nero,” she said. She stuck her hands through the bars and put them on her son’s cheeks. “My baby boy. You’ve grown so much.”

Nero set down his basket and clasped Arietta’s hands. “So, you  _ are  _ my mother, huh?” The young man asked.

Arietta nodded, stroking Nero’s cheek with her thumb. “Oh, you look just like your father.”

Nero leaned into Arietta’s hold and closed his eyes as tears came down his cheeks. “Mom, Mama, I- I’m so sorry…! I didn’t-! I did this to you! I  _ arrested  _ you!”

“You did what was expected of you,” Arietta said. “Come here.” She pulled Nero’s head down and gave him a kiss on his forehead. “Nico told me that you are going to be married, yes?”

“Nico? Sir Agnus’ daughter?” Nero asked.

“She was assigned to do testing on me, it seems,” Arietta said. “But she hasn’t been administering them. She told me about what Dante said at the Sunrise, telling everyone about your father.”

“He wanted to set you free,” Nero said. He choked and grasped Arietta’s frail, cold hand. “Mama, I don’t want to be here anymore. I hate this! I don’t want to get married! I don’t want to get married to  _ Kyrie!” _

“Shh, shh shh, it’s okay,” Arietta promised. She wiped a few tears from Nero’s face. “Nero… I… I shouldn’t tell you this, but… I need you to be serious with you telling me this. Do you want to leave the Order of the Sword?”

The boy nodded as his sobs overtook him. His pale face flushed bright pink and his eyes reddened. “Please…”

“Tell Dante. Tell Gloria. Tell Nico. One of those three. They’ll help you,” Arietta said. “You won’t be trapped here, I promise.”

“C-Can we go together?” Nero begged. “Please, Mama.”

“We can be a family,” Arietta promised.

Nero stood outside of the laboratory. Agnus was an intimidating man, despite his rather cowardly disposition and his stutter. His sheer  _ size  _ was what scared him. He steeled himself. He was there to talk to Nico. He pressed the door button, holding his other hand on his gun.

The door opened with a buzz, letting him into the deserted lab. All of the fellow scientists had gone, with a little pathway of lights leading Nero down to an office. A flash of brown hair caught his eye. He turned the corner to see the glint of glasses look up at him.

“Didya need something?” Nico asked nervously from her chair. She spun the swivel chair out and jumped up, clutching a bundle of papers to her chest as she nearly knocked over a vase with a bouquet of blue roses.

“Is anyone else here? This needs to be private,” Nero said. He looked around the office nervously, letting his hand slip away from his gun.

“Everyone else left for the night,” Nico said. “I-I-I was just finishing up my papers…”

“Good.” Nero looked around the office as his core trembled. “The pris- my- my mother- my mother told me to come to you. You said you can help me leave?”

“I-I’m not leaving!” Nico squeaked. “A-And I haven’t spoken to the prisoner!”

“She said you could help me leave,” Nero said. He sat down on a chair next to Nico. “Please, I can’t take this. I don’t want to uphold unjust laws. I don’t want to raise some fucking- some fucking  _ demon god _ that my- my apparent uncle is giving birth to! I don’t want to get mar-!” He stopped himself. “I don’t want Kyrie and I to get hurt.”

Nico’s bottom lip trembled as she saw how distressed Nero was. “I hate this life. I was supposed to experiment on Miss Arie, turn her into a demonic  _ beast…  _ Dante and his friend offered me a way out,” she said. “A-A-And I’m taking it.”

“Take me with you, please. Me and Kyrie,” Nero begged. “I want to be with my mother.”

Nico sniffled and wiped her face with a tissue. “Nero, I swear to the heavens, you  _ must  _ keep this to yourself,” she warned. “I can try my best to help you but you have to be cooperative, or else we will be imprisoned too.”

“I don’t want to be the heir of Sparda,” Nero mumbled. “I don’t want to raise a kid. Kyrie said she wants more kids, too!”

“You more than anyone would be expected to have children,” Nico said. “My father is already trying to arrange something for me. But I don’t want to be forced to marry just anyone. I don’t want to be forced at all. He says it’s my future that I must marry and have children because that’s the will of Sparda, but I don’t want that. I don’t want to carry out his stupid tests. I just want to create. It took so much pushing for my father to budge and let me take time off to create Dante’s prosthetic.”

“What do I have to do so we can get out of here?” Nero asked.

“I think we’d need to speak to Gloria about that,” Nico said. “Not to Dante, no. He’s too stressed.”

Nero sat back in his chair, flexing his right arm. “I think this is all my fault. I lead him right to this. But- Oh god, this is going to be the shittiest thing to say… if this didn’t happen to him, I wouldn’t have met my mother.”


	12. Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lord Sparda is reborn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning: This is the most violently graphic chapter in this fic, depicting childbirth. I tried to focus it more on Dante's reactions.

For the past few days, Dante’s entire being was consumed by vomiting and convulsions. It took all his effort to lean on Trish or Credo as they helped him to the bathroom. He didn’t bother eating at all, as it would just come back up alongside compressed clusters of coagulated blood. Agnus and a midwife from the Order, Harmonia, checked in on him periodically, inside and out. From how he was reacting, the rebirth was upon them.

“Bring her to the Grand Hall,” Harmonia determined as she removed her hand from Dante.

“Fuck off, don’t touch me,” the man grumbled weakly, kicking his leg out. His face was pale and his forehead was covered in sweat as his entire body burned. At first glance, he seemed feverish. “I’m not going anywhere…”

“T-T-This is not holy enough of a place for Lord S-Sparda to be reborn,” Agnus said. He took Dante’s right arm and clicked a button on his prosthetic, popping off the arm that the scientist’s own daughter created. “The Incubator must be moved. Credo, if you will…”

The holy knight standing beside Agnus erupted in a flurry of light as his artificial demon form took hold. Taller and stronger now, he was able to pick up Dante and cushion him in his arms. Cold heat radiated from his fleshy chest, uncovered from feathers. “Gloria, you are to alert Nero. He’ll know what to do.”

“Right,” Trish nodded. A lump formed in her throat as she left.

Dante whimpered and struggled in Credo’s arms as pain took hold of him. He had experienced cramps before. He had experienced fevers before. But this… his whole body was consumed by all muscles tightening. Heat nearly glowed off of him. He pushed his face into Credo’s feathers and let out a sob as he felt blood slip from within him, staining his robes and dripping onto the ground.

Each step shook Dante’s body, throwing him into even more pain. At first he cried, but soon, no more tears could come. His eyes glazed over as he rested into Credo’s grip, trying to let sleep overtake him. The contraction of his muscles faded into background noise as Credo entered the hall and descended a few steps. People were already filing into the room, with Nero waiting at the altar with Sanctus.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” Dante slurred.

“Don’t worry about that. We’re going this way,” Credo said, bringing him into the side room.

A small bed had been rolled in with a leather strap off the side. A few priestesses were waiting in the room. Credo set Dante down so he could stand up, and immediately the girls swarmed Dante. Hands were all over him, stripping him of his clothes and scrubbing his body down of the blood that was dribbling down his leg. He was hoisted onto the bed and covered in a white cloth. A girl took his left arm and pinned it to the bed, strapping it down with the leather.

Dante lay there, staring down at his rippling stomach as he felt blood pool out of him. His head lolled to the side as he gave up fighting the pains.

Nico and the midwife-priestess Harmonia stepped inside. In her hands, Nico held a small bag packed full of supplies pushing at the fabric. She could barely look at Dante, and instead fiddled with the strap on her bag.

The hymns and prayers of Sanctus echoed through the hall as he gave his sermon. Nero waited a few steps under him, dressed in his knightly garb, as he saw Kyrie at the opposite end of the hall. She couldn’t contain her excitement as Sanctus introduced her as an unmarried maiden for the final time to the Order of the Sword.

Organs played merrily as Kyrie stepped across the hall, holding a bouquet of flowers. At any other point in time, Nero’s heart would melt at the sight of her smile, but on that day, his stomach just churned and danced within him.

Kyrie stepped up to him with a bright grin on her face. She stared up into Nero’s white-blue eyes and gasped, ready to throw her arms around him-

A scream ripped out through the Grand Hall, followed by the shushing and fussing of several ladies.

Dante kicked out and struggled against the bindings. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he tried to ride out another contraction, but the stress was killing him. He pulled against the leather strap around his left wrist as his stomach folded in on itself. Blood escaped his parts, staining the white fabric of the bed.

The eldest priestess pulled up the blanket across Dante’s body and slinked her fingers to his entrance, but he responded with a kick to her arm.  _ “Ow!  _ I’m just trying to check to see if you should start pushing-!”

_ “Don’t fucking tell me what to do!”  _ Dante bellowed. He took a second to catch his breath, pressing his shoulderblades into the bed and lifting his chest. His breathing barely hit the back of his throat before he exhaled once more. His head felt fuzzy and weak as he let out a pained groan, and he fell back on the bed. “Don’t… don’t talk to me… don’t tell me what I have to do… don’t  _ encourage  _ me, don’t even  _ look  _ at me…”

Harmonia crossed her arms, wiping the blood from her fingertips onto her apron. “I can make this easier for you.”

_ “You can make it easier for me by leaving and getting Gloria!”  _ Dante yelled. He stared up at the girls that surrounded him with death in his eyes, before succumbing to more agony. “Leave…”

“I cannot do that,” Harmonia said, while Nico dashed out of the room for a moment.

The young scientist returned a bit later with Dante’s disguised girlfriend. Trish approached him, gently nudging aside one of the girls, and stroking back the man’s white hair. “He doesn’t like strangers,” she said.

“You are not permitted to be here,” Harmonia said sternly. “Only blessed followers of Sparda-”

Dante’s body erupted in a bout of electricity for the briefest of moments. His Devil Trigger reached his claw for a quick second to tear a hole into the fabric of the bed, then dissipated. “She stays.”

“My fellow children of Sparda,” Sanctus said, raising his hands. “I introduce before you, our heir of the Savior’s blood, and the soon-to-be mother of blessed demons, hand-in-hand in wedded bliss.”

Kyrie threw her arms around Nero in a squeal, pressing her face to his. She tossed her bouquet of flowers to the ground as she held his head to hers. Her heart felt like it was going to burst as she locked lips with her husband.

Nero could barely put his hands on her waist as they shared their first moments as husband and wife. His pale eyes were wild, flying around the room as cheers filled his ears. He could see Credo standing guard nearby, holstering his sword and clapping his hands together. A smile was across his face.

“Nero,” Kyrie whispered, snapping his focus back to her. “We’re  _ married!  _ And we’re going to be parents! Isn’t that wonderful?”

Hours dragged on. Dante lay on the bed, relenting and letting Harmonia check on him periodically. Trish sat by his side, dabbing at his forehead with a wet towel, as Nico administered little sugar tablets to him. The young priestesses encircling him sang quiet prayers and blessings, sometimes tossing flower petals on his body. He gave up trying to fight them off.

“This is going too slow,” the midwife said after a check. “It’s been hours. Everyone is waiting.” She turned to Nico. “Your father told me that he had something just in case?”

Nico looked up in a panic from the contents of her bag. “I-”

Dante turned his head to look at her, glaring daggers into her soul, before fatigue set in and he shut his eyes. His throat quivered as he tried to take a breath.

Nico pulled a metal box out of her bag and found a syringe with clear liquid. “Yes, I do,” she muttered. She approached Dante and muttered “I’m so sorry…” before flicking the needle and sticking it in his neck. He shuddered as she pressed the plunger, injecting the concoction into him. Dante’s whole body erupted into an agonizing convulsion. “This will be over soon, I promise.”

Dante struggled against the bindings as he felt muscles within him scream and bloom. Blood dripped from him as his body went into overdrive. His monthly pains were nothing compared to the demons tearing his skin off and forcing him into not only a body but a nightmare that was not his.

_ “Please just kill me!”  _ Dante begged as he desperately tried to bring his child into the world-

The door opened and in slipped a woman in a white and gold dress. Dante lifted his head up to see Kyrie’s smiling face. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink as she weaseled her way to the opposite end of where Dante was laying.

“The world is waiting,” the newlywed said.

_ “Get the hell out,” _ Dante cried. He could barely muster enough energy to take a breath. His body rippled in instinct and he laid his head back, craning his neck towards the sky as he followed his body’s path, trying his hardest to push whenever he could. He could not bring himself to let out any noises. The pain was his everything, holding him in such a tight grip that his vision faded to grays.

“There it comes,” Kyrie hummed. Her hand touched the emerging head and brushed against Dante’s inner thighs, and he would have kicked out at her if he had the strength, but at this point, any perceived help was begrudgingly welcomed.

The songs of the priestesses filled his ears, enveloping him in a peaceful, harsh sound that drowned out the dullness of his pain. His body rippled and contracted as he shut his eyes, feeling his heartbeat pound in his ears. The song grew louder and louder, accompanied by the cheerful words of encouragement by Kyrie.

“The Savior Lord Sparda is nearly upon us,” a voice said.

Dante shuddered as the mass inside him slipped from him a bit further. His entire lower half was soaked in blood, and coupled with the exposure to the outside left him freezing. He winced as he felt someone’s fingers prod inside him, and-

Pain unrelenting cut through him. Dante screeched to the heavens as his body split. His chest rose and fell, and something slipped forth from him.

And with that, silence.

He looked up, catching his breath, to see Kyrie standing in front of him, holding a mass of flesh. A wide eye stared at him while stubby, fat arms clung to Kyrie’s white dress. The cord was still attached to it, leading from its stomach down to under the blanket that was over Dante’s legs. The bride gasped and cooed at the reborn god, stroking its face. It was half-formed and writhed in her grip, seeming both liquid and solid. It seemed to have no skin, only boasting red muscle and yellow fat. The single bulging eye twisted and contorted as it focused in on Dante.

Whatever it was, what Dante had given birth to was not human.


	13. Chrysalis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credo has a few chats while Dante is in recovery.

Kyrie and Nero settled into the master bedroom of Fortuna Castle, which had been prepared for them in the previous month. Supposedly, the room had been Sparda’s own, with the plan being he was to remember his previous life as he grew up. The blood that had been covering the newborn had quickly solidified, leaving the monstrous child in a sort of cocoon. A heartbeat could be heard if one put their ear to his chest. The actual form of Sparda was more solid now, resembling that of a newborn baby. One eye was wide open, staring out into space, while the other was closed. A little smudge seemed to be dashed across the middle of his forehead, or perhaps a wrinkle, almost resembling a crescent or a closed eye. When Kyrie had pointed it out, she called it cute.

Kyrie pulled off her bloodied dress and hung it up outside to dry, then approached Nero, locking her husband in a kiss. “Oh, Nero…” she sighed, resting her head against his chest. “That crowd, oh, it was so overwhelming!”

“That was… quite the turnout,” he mumbled. As he held his wife, he stared at the reborn Sparda, staring at them from under the translucent red sheen of the glassy wall. “Was Dante alright?”

“I don’t know,” Kyrie shrugged. “But look on the bright side, we’re caring for the Lord Sparda! A-And we’ll have our own kids soon!”

“Kyr, we haven’t even slept in the same bed before. Where are you getting kids from?” Nero asked. He pulled back, holding her hands. “A-And we’re still… I’m still a teenager.” Right, she was older than him, having recently turned twenty…

“You’re a descendant of Sparda. We must continue the bloodline,” Kyrie said. “And, well, I was hoping…” She paused to tuck a lock of red hair behind her ear. “I was hoping that we could get started on it tonight.”

“I’m not exactly ready for this yet,” Nero said. He sat down on the bed and took his shoes off. “Kyrie… are you happy here in the Order?”

“Huh?” She slipped on her pajamas and slid in bed next to him. “Yes?”

“Is this going to be our lives forever? Living here on this island, seeing the same people, doing the same thing,” Nero said. “Being…  _ worshipped  _ because of the blood I happen to be born with.”

“Are you saying you want to  _ leave?”  _ Kyrie asked, laying her head against his shoulder.

“I just think that the world is large and vast, and I don’t want to be stuck here my whole life,” he said. He steeled himself, taking her hand. If he left, he could raise a true family, and his mother would be there as well. A grandmother to his own children… He would be with his uncle and- Dante had two girlfriends? Two aunts. And Nico being there… They wouldn’t be alone. Far from it. “More than anything, I want to leave. A-A-And you’d come with, of course!”

“Nero… we have a responsibility. It is our duty to take care of Sparda,” Kyrie said as she took his hand. “And to replenish his bloodline.”

“I’m not saying we’d  _ abandon  _ him. He’ll come with us. We’ll be a family,” Nero said. “You, me, and our child.” He pressed a fingertip from the hand he stole from his uncle into Kyrie’s bellybutton playfully. “And any other children we may have, of course.”

Kyrie giggled and scooted to sit up on Nero’s lap, planting kisses all over him. “We’d be together, then?” The girl asked. She rested her head on Nero’s chest.

“We’d be together, yes,” he promised, resting his cheek on her head. “A-And with my mother, too.”

“Your mother,” Kyrie said with a sigh. “Do you really believe that she is your mother?”

“I spoke to her,” Nero said. “She told me about my father, and Dante believes her as well. He had proof. S-Something in his hands at the celebration... I never got to look at it.”

“And you believe her?”

“Well, yes. She’s my mother. There’s a familiarity to her that I can’t quite explain.”

“I mean Dante.”

Nero frowned. “You said  _ her _ .”

“I know what I said.”

Credo entered Sanctus’ chambers, his hands held behind his back as always. “You wanted to see me, Father?”

“Yes, dear Credo,” Sanctus said as he sat upon a plush chair. Next to him was a small table of treats and a chair across from him. “Take a seat.”

Credo approached and sat down, looking over at his leader. “Ah, these past few days…”

“Quite hectic, yes,” Sanctus said. “But Lord Sparda has returned to us, and your sister has been informing us that he is developing well. The chrysalis has formed successfully.”

“I’m sorry?” Credo asked. “What- what chrysalis?”

“Sparda was gestated in a cambion rather than a full blooded demon and was born half-formed. To keep the matter short, there’s one final stage of development. He is encased in a shell of his own blood,” Sanctus said. “It’s healthy.”

The knight nodded slowly. “I understand. Was that what I was needed for?”

“The rebirth of Sparda is only the beginning of the new age,” Sanctus said. “The Incubator also carries his blood. It is only natural that Sparda’s bloodline must be amplified and expanded. Seeing as you come from a strong and devout line of Spardan worshippers, and your father was the first to Ascend, I’d like to propose you as the father to the continuation of our Lord’s bloodline.”

“You… you want me to marry Dante and have kids with him?” Credo asked.

“No, no, you may marry whoever you please,” Sanctus said, waving his hand at Credo. “The Incubator is on the level of the highest prisoners due to her transgressions against our Order. I merely ask you to father more children tied to the bloodline of our god.”

Father more children of Sparda… Credo looked up at Sanctus nervously. “I feel unworthy… I understand my sister being married off to Nero due to her devotion, but I-I’m not as holy as she is.”

“Credo, you have served the Order of the Sword as a general since your father passed, and you’ve been a knight for over a decade now. That is only the  _ surface  _ of your devotion,” Sanctus smiled. “I assure you, my child, that you are more than worthy enough to… essentially become her mate.”

“Am I to tell Dante myself?” Credo asked. “Or will you tell him?”

_ “She  _ shall be informed in due time,” Sanctus said. “For now, Nicoletta and Gloria inform me that the Incubator is still in recovery.”

“It hasn’t even been a day,” Credo said with a nervous smile. “And to give birth to a wholly inhuman being…”

“Once she has recovered, then we shall discuss this with her.”

“I don’t understand why you insist on referring to Dante as a woman,” Credo said, quirking an eyebrow up. “His very appearance, mannerisms, voice…”

“The Incubator was given a name by Sparda himself, and I will not allow someone with such delusion to reject a name bestowed upon her by our lord,” Sanctus said. “If you are to refer to her by name, you are to refer to her as her given name, not this mockery. Either she is to be called the Incubator or Beatrice, not  _ Dante.”  _ The old man’s fingers dug into the fabric of his chair. “That name is an insult to Sparda.”

“How would you know this?” Credo asked.

“I knew of Nero’s parentage since his birth,” Sanctus said. “His father came to this island seeking knowledge to unlock his full potential. I allowed Vergil residency in the Order temporarily in exchange for his extermination work of unwanted demons and knowledge of his own, and he provided insight on Sparda’s life, including information on his sister.”

“If you knew Nero was a descendant of Sparda, then why send his mother to exile?” Credo asked. “I understand she fell pregnant while unwedded, but if you are making an exception for D- the Incubator, then why not her as well? Wasn’t she a particularly devoted priestess?”

“I have my reasons,” Sanctus said, waving his hand away. “You are dismissed, Credo. Once the Incubator is well enough, you are to report back to me.”

“I understand, Father.”

Dante lay in his bed, completely exhausted from the day. Nico sat nearby and checked on his temperature and vitals periodically while Trish waited nearby. Dante would shudder every so often, turning from side to side under a white sheet. Under him lay a pile of towels, as he was still bleeding out.

“Give ‘em back…” the man whined in his sleep.

“I’ve never had kids, but is this normal? All of this blood,” Trish said as she helped Nico change Dante’s towels.

“I’m unsure. There’s a certain level of discharge, I believe, but then again, I’m not well-read on caring for someone in this condition,” Nico said, biting her lip. “I’m more of a tinkerer rather than this sort of… hands-on doctor, but my father insists I monitor Dante.”

“I think it’s best you’re monitoring him,” Trish said.

“Oh, of course,” Nico said. She wiped up a bit of blood from Dante’s legs, causing him to shiver, then tossed the rag in a bucket and replaced the towels underneath. “I think we need to wait until he’s well enough to walk before we can even  _ think  _ of leaving, however long that will take.”

“I’m surprised he’s not bouncing back right away. His blood should heal him easily. I’ve seen this guy get stabbed a hundred times over and get back up immediately,” Trish said. She sat next to Dante and played with his silvery hair as he slept, twitching occasionally. “Though… childbirth  _ is  _ more natural than getting stabbed and shot.”

“That could do it,” Nico said. “As for leaving, I found a way that we can escape to the port faster. So, there are tunnelways under the palace, and one of them is an escape chute specifically for an ambush, leading close to the port. Only a hundred and fifty feet away, actually. It’s accessed through a side entrance to the laboratory. It would take us a bit of maneuvering, and getting Miss Arietta there would be a bit of an issue, but it’s our best bet.”

“If you could show me, that would be helpful,” Trish said. “And if I could-”

A hand knocked at the door. Trish jumped up and her form shimmered and assumed Gloria’s shape just as the door opened, with Credo on the other side. “Am I interrupting something?”

“We-We-We were checking on him,” Nico stammered. “I-I can leave…”

“I do not wish to push you out,” Credo said. He stared over at Dante’s sleeping body, then the pile of bloody rags. “Is he recovering well?”

Nico put her hand on Dante’s forehead for a brief moment. “He’s been languid at best. He just passed out soon after the birth.”

“We’re not sure if his body handled it well,” Trish said.

“I-I-I had to inject him with something t-to actually get him to…  _ open up,” _ Nico said, her voice rasping at the final two words. “I think I caused this. This is my fault.”

“No, you did what you had to do,” Trish said. “I don’t think it was progressing right.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Nico whimpered. “It shouldn’t have gone this fast. You  _ saw  _ how much blood he lost!”

“Fussing over it won’t change the past,” Trish said. She looked up at Credo. “Are you here to relieve my post?”

“I came to speak to Dante,” Credo said carefully. His eyes lingered on the sleeping body, with the words of Sanctus echoing in his mind.  _ Sanctus was aware of Nero’s parentage.  _ He was supposed to relieve Gloria as well, but- “Please, excuse me for a moment.” He left the room and shut the door, leaving the girls in confusion.

Credo made a beeline to the staircase, descending past the floors and down the grimy stone steps to the dungeon. A soft voice bounced off of the walls, singing a quiet tune.  _ “...Now that you're here, I feel I'm coming home. We're bright clouds on a calm, quiet wind-“ _

The knight approached the cell and cleared his throat to see the only prisoner, sitting with her knees to her chest. She sat on a few plush blankets, surrounded by soft pillows. A wicker basket contained a variety of nonperishable food. Someone had been treating her well. “That’s a lovely song,” Credo said, paying no mind to the red hood she had down around her neck.

Arietta clasped a hand over her mouth and looked away, flipping her hood back up. Her whole core trembled as she looked away.

“I won’t chastise you further,” Credo said. “I only wish to speak. I give you permission.”

The prisoner put her hands down. “Yes…?”

“I have a few questions, ma’am. You don’t have to wear the hood if you don’t want to,” Credo started. Complying with his wishes, Arietta put her hood down, though her hands trembled like leaves quaking in the wind. “You are the mother of Nero, yes?”

“I am,” Arietta mumbled. “And you’re the son of Giocoso and Ottavia. I knew them when we were all young.”

“And that’s why Nero was given to my parents?” Credo asked, realizing he was already getting off-track. However, any answers were good answers.

“No, it was due to your parents’ intense devotion to the worship of Sparda, and the fact that they had experience raising two children. The pathway you were on with becoming a knight was promising,” Arietta said. “Do you not remember me? I lived with you in the months before Nero was born.”

The man squinted and studied Arietta’s face. “I… Could you put up your hood?”

Arietta did as told, and a memory snapped back into Credo’s mind.  _ He was sitting at the kitchen table as a young boy, with Kyrie sitting across from him in her high chair. The baby played with the mess of cereal, tossing it occasionally at the hooded woman between them. Her hood was a gray rather than the typical white. He remembered now, his parents said she was dirty and dusty and that’s why she wore a gray hood. _

_ “Now, Credo, do you want to try the flash cards again?” The tutor asked, showing off a few cards of quick addition and subtraction problems. “Or do you think you can tackle the homework?” _

_ “I’m hungry…” Credo grumbled. “We’ve been doing homework all day!” _

_ “Okay, we’ll have a little snack break,” Arietta promised. She got out of her chair and went to the kitchen, holding her large stomach. _

_ In retrospect, Credo realized his tutor wasn’t fat, but carrying a child, and the reason she left soon after, around the time his parents brought home Nero, was because she went into exile after giving birth to his new brother. _

“I do remember you,” he said. “Tell me, did you know Nero’s father was a son of Sparda?”

Arietta sighed and shrugged. “Not at first. Nobody knew. He was just the mysterious hero that killed some stray demons that escaped the Hell Gates and took up residency in the palace after a time,” she said. “He told me half a year after we met, well after we started dating.”

“Father Sanctus told me that he and Vergil exchanged knowledge,” Credo said.

“That was the trade,” Arietta said. “He indulged me and told me all of what he was learning, but not what he was teaching others.”

Credo looked around Arietta’s cell. “They’ve set you up well,” he said.

“S-Someone’s been bringing me amenities,” Arietta said. “I’m not giving names, just in case it’ll get them in trouble.” She stood up, glaring at Credo.

“No, these cells and this prison… it’s a bit too harsh,” Credo said. “I’m surprised that Agnus is not experimenting on you. Perhaps just having one prisoner is not enough for his data.”

Arietta bit her bottom lip to halt herself from correcting him. “How is Dante?”

“He’s been sleeping ever since the birth, it seems,” Credo said. “It took a lot out of him.”

“So the Dark Knight Sparda has been reborn,” Arietta said, confirmed with a nod from Credo. “And Nero is taking care of him?”

“Yes, Nero and Kyrie were entrusted with Sparda,” Credo said. “Dante is in recovery.” The words of Sanctus echoed through him. He was to father children with Dante!  _ He was to continue the bloodline! _ “I must leave. Thank you for your cooperation.”


	14. Somewhere Far Beyond This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nero breaks.

It took a few days for Dante to recover enough to stand up. In the meantime, Trish and Nico had stayed in his room and kept him company. When Credo was on shift, the man would wait outside as always. Finally, he was able to sit up properly and roam about the castle as he usually did.

“I take it I’m not allowed to leave just yet?” Dante asked over breakfast one morning, glaring at Credo over his food. The pickings were different now, though they were all plentiful. “You have some other tasks for me?”

Credo sighed and nodded. “You never were going to leave,” he said. “But why would you want to? We’ve given you  _ everything.” _

“You stole my arm! And I just gave birth to a demon that  _ you  _ forced inside of me!” Dante screeched. “Are you so  _ brainwashed  _ that you don’t realize what you’ve done?!”

“This was the will of Sparda, given to us through Sanctus,” Credo said.

“And why does Sanctus still want me to stay here, then? Why give me these nice foods? Why not throw me in the prison?”

“Your bloodline is too important,” Credo said. “Sanctus declares that the will of Sparda is that his bloodline is continued.”

“Continued?” Dante asked, raising an eyebrow. “So, Nero’s going to be having a kid too? Gonna defile that poor boy now?”

“He’ll start a family with his wife on his own time, but as well as that, Sanctus…” Credo took a breath. “Sanctus has determined that the two of us are to…  _ reproduce.” _

_ “Eat shit,”  _ Dante snarled with a mouthful of food. “You’re not sticking anything else in me, or I’ll stick a blade in your throat. And I  _ just  _ gave birth not even a week ago! What kind of perverted cult is this?! Are you always so concerned with having children?!”

“Of course we are going to  _ wait,”  _ Credo said. “In the meantime, we have to get you back to health, and we are going to do everything in our power to do that. You’ll be in top shape before we even attempt anything.”

“It’s curious,” Agnus said as he examined the infant Sparda in his crib. The scientist shone a light in Sparda’s eye, watching the child’s pupil contract. “He s-s-seems to react despite being encased in a shell. I would like to scrape off a sample, but that risks bursting the chrysalis.” He stood in the room with Nico, while Kyrie and Nero waited nearby. The sun was setting upon the day.

Nico scribbled down her father’s words on her clipboard. “Maybe you can wait until he emerges to test?”

“He may eat the shell, though,” Agnus said. “This is  _ wondrous! _ To not only study demons from birth, but the Lord Sparda…!”

“How long do you estimate he’ll be in the chrysalis phase?” Kyrie asked, stepping towards the crib. “When should we stay home just in case he hatches?”

“From what I’ve seen of the demons that have this sort of phase of development, I would hazard a guess that it w-w-would take at least three more months,” Agnus said. “Given it only took six to be birthed.”

“It would capture the last three months of a human pregnancy, right?” Nico asked.

_ “Yes,  _ Nicoletta, there is  _ no  _ need for you to state the obvious,” Agnus snapped at his daughter. The girl clutched her clipboard to her chest and quieted down. “T-t-that is all for tonight. Thank you for letting us in.”

“Our doors are always open for you,” Kyrie said. “As long as it is to further the development of Sparda.”

“Of course,” Agnus said, giving the girl a nod. He ushered his daughter to him and left.

Kyrie walked over to Nero sitting at a table, cleaning his gun. She wrapped her arms around her husband and gave him a kiss on the head, resting her hands on his shoulders. “This feels like a dream,” she said. She stroked the side of Nero’s face, then down to his chest. “Come to bed, dear.”

Nero sighed and set down his gun, then got up. Kyrie pulled him into her arms and gave him a few kisses on the neck. “What are you doing?” he mumbled, petting Kyrie’s sweet red hair.

“Come to bed,” Kyrie repeated, slipping her hands to his hips.

“Are you seriously coming onto me?” Nero asked in a quiet voice, returning a kiss.

“We’ve been married for a week, Nero. You’ve yet to claim me.”

“That word just feels wrong,” Nero said.

“Then come with me to bed.”

The young man sighed and scooped up his wife, then tossed her gently on the bed, slipping his coat off. “You really want this?” His heart pounded in his ears.

“More than anything! Nero, we’re  _ finally  _ married! Don’t you want to play around?” Kyrie giggled.

Nero responded with a smile as he pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it off to the side. “I’ve been  _ nervous,  _ Kyr!” He let out an uncomfortable laugh, then slinked his hands up Kyrie’s dress. He helped undress his wife, and soon the two were left exposed to the open air. Nero knelt over his wife on his hands and knees, looking down at his right arm. There was a little white scarline where Kyrie had cut off his demon arm and replaced it with Dante’s, and the replaced forearm had more of a pinkish skin tone dotted with little scars. Thanks to Nero’s blood, the new arm had warped and reshaped to be symmetrical, but in the end, it still wasn’t his arm.

Nero lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, as Kyrie dozed off beside him, her back facing him. He held his hands behind his bed as he struggled to sleep. The act they partook in had tired him out, but he couldn’t find himself truly exhausted enough to fall asleep. He rolled over to face his wife, stroking a hand down her curves. She slept soundly, unreactive to his touch.

At the far end of the room was the crib with the reborn Sparda, resting within his glass prison. A slight red glow emanated from the chrysalis, just enough to glance a light off of the side walls of the crib.

Nero sat up and rubbed his eyes, feeling more awake than he thought. He slipped out of bed, tucking his wife into bed, and dressed in some pajamas. He slipped out of their room as a pit of regret formed in his stomach.

He rounded the corner of the dungeons, a bit surprised to hear noises at this hour. Nero turned to see his mother doubled over the toilet in her cell, retching into it as Nico held her. “Hey-! What’s going on?”

“Side effects of the experiments,” Nico muttered.

_ “You said you wouldn’t administer them to her!”  _ Nero’s hands balled into fists as he ran over, throwing Nico out of the way as he held his mother.

“I wasn’t the one who did!” Nico squeaked. “My father has been doing them himself!” She readjusted her glasses as she scrambled to her feet. “I-I-I tried to stop him, I promise… I fed Miss Arietta some activated charcoal to induce vomiting.”

The woman put her hands on the rim of the toilet and held her head up, letting bile drip from her lips. “I feel disgusting,” Arietta croaked.

“Is it all out?” Nico asked.

“My stomach feels like… like it’s been folded in…” Arietta cried. She leaned against her son and shut her eyes. “Nico, everything hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” Nico said. She helped Nero drag the woman to bed and tucked her in. “I’m so sorry…”

“Tell Gloria we’re doing this tomorrow,” Nero declared. “No matter fucking  _ what,  _ we are  _ leaving.  _ I am not letting anyone else hurt my mother.”

“Yes, of course,” Nico whispered, staring down at Arietta as the woman’s eyes shut. “Get some sort of bag ready to put the Savior in. Cushion it with pillows or a blanket or something. We can’t let the shell crack. Is Kyrie coming with?”

“I… Yes,” Nero stammered. He sat down next to his mother. “Mama?”

“Yes, Nero?” Arietta asked weakly.

“We’re going to be out of this, I promise,” Nero said. He knelt down and gave his mother a kiss on the forehead.

Nero returned to his room, finding Kyrie tossing and turning. He grabbed his mission supply bag from one of his shelves and dumped out the remains, tucking in a pillow and some blankets, enough so that Sparda would be shielded.

“Nero?” Kyrie mumbled sleepily.

The man stepped over and stroked his wife’s forehead. “Kyrie… we’re going to leave tomorrow,” he breathed. “Okay? We’ll be free of this.”

“Leaving… where?”

“We’re leaving the Order. I’m done here, Kyrie. We’ll start a new life somewhere else, alright?”


	15. Wheel of Fortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Near the end there’s another graphic scene.

Sunlight barely scorched the earth as Dante leaned against Trish. The two snuck around the sleeping halls of the palace. Dante still felt a twinge of pain deep within his stomach. Every so often, for the past week, he had been feeling it, but paid it no mind. It had to be something normal.

“Nico said she’d meet us down the shaft, right?” Dante asked. The two stopped in a stairwell, resting against the handrail. In his pocket rested the scrap of paper of Nero’s birth record and the photograph of Arietta and Vergil. Since the rebirth, he hadn’t had access to his prosthetic hand. Someone had taken it from him. “And where’s Nero?” He leaned against the handrail as he took a deep breath.

“Yes, Nico is waiting with Kyrie as Nero gets Arietta,” Trish replied. “We’ve amassed quite a group.”

“And where’s my child?” Dante asked, his voice barely holding back how much he was pleading. “I need to see him…”

“Kyrie has the chrysalis,” Trish said. “Let’s go. We need to be at the docks before sunrise.”

“I need him, Trish,” Dante said, following her down the stairs.

“I know.”

Dante’s head spun as he and Trish descended a spiral staircase. Using the elevator to get to the laboratory would be much easier, but it would surely alert Agnus or some of the other scientists. Finally, they reached a door and clicked it open. The lights of the laboratory were all off, with only glowing vats on one end and some flickering lights on others. Dante took his girlfriend’s hand as he adjusted to the low light.

“You can see in this?” Dante asked as his eyes adjusted.

“You can’t?” Trish asked. Her pupils were already blown out. She turned and looked at him. “Right. Half human.”

 _“Dante? Trish?”_ Nico’s voice bounced off of the walls.

“You’re here?” Trish called out.

“Yeah, w-w-we’re here,” Nico said. “South end. O-Or you can just follow my voice…”

Trish led Dante through the sterile laboratory, past giant vats of artificial demons submerged in fluid. Stings of pain erupted through Dante as he moved.

“T-Trish,” Dante groaned. He felt sweat run down his forehead. “Trish, it hurts.”

“We’re almost there,” Trish said. “We’ll be on the boat before you know it.”

They reached a side area of the laboratory. A bookshelf was moved out of the way to show off a small crevice in the wall. Nico and Kyrie sat on chairs nearby, with a little knapsack embroidered with the Order’s crest on it by Kyrie’s feet. Nico had her own bag. As she moved, metal clinked on metal.

Dante dipped to his knees and opened Kyrie’s bag, seeing his child within. He scooped up his son, holding the being close to his chest. “I’m here, Papa’s here,” he whispered, putting his head on the head of his baby. “Oh, you’re so cold…”

“Hey,” Kyrie said. “What are you doing?”

Dante paid Kyrie no mind. “You still haven't met your mothers yet,” he whispered to the baby in the red shell. The child’s right eye opened wide, looking around and focusing on his father. “Oh, I woke you, though. You should get back to sleep.” Dante held the baby to his chest and sat there, eyes half lidded.

“Let go of him! He needs rest,” Kyrie said, trying to pry the chrysalis from Dante’s arms. “And you weren’t chosen to raise him!”

“He needs his father,” Dante said, resting his cheek on his son’s head and nuzzling him.

Nico knelt down and opened her bag. “Here, this’ll help,” she said, pulling a prosthetic arm from her bag and attaching it to him. “I have others with different functions that I’d like you to try out. See if you like ‘em.”

“Thank you,” Dante said.

The four waited for a while, with Kyrie glaring down at Dante the entire time. The man grunted in pain every so often as he felt a spike of pain through his gut. The back of his mind compared it to the labor pains he felt the week prior, but he had been so corrupted by the onslaught of agony that he couldn’t tell if they were truly comparable.

A light shone at the other end of the laboratory. Trish stood up and held her knives, not even bothering to assume Gloria’s form anymore. “Get back,” she said to the other three, putting herself between Dante and the two young women.

 _“Nico?”_ Nero’s voice called out.

“We’re back here,” Trish responded. “Are you able to see?”

“It’s, uh… it’s kinda dark,” Nero called. “But I have a flashlight! Mama, are you okay?”

“Everything’s so cold,” Arietta mumbled.

The two found their way to the main group. Arietta stared at the other four with sunken, tired eyes, but broke a smile when she saw Dante.

“Alright, we’re all here, then?” Nero asked. All the women in the group nodded while Dante gave a grunt of agreement. “Then let’s go. Nico, lead the way.”

“My father has been using this shaft to dump his failed experiments,” Nico said. “Nero, is it okay if either you or Trish be in front?”

“One in front, one in back. Protect the group,” Trish said.

“I want my sword,” Dante groaned.

“Lady has your sword,” Trish told him as the group filed into the shaft. She replaced the bookshelf in front of the crevice, then took out her knives.

The pathway itself was long and had rounded walls, though there was quite a bit of space for the group of six to walk. Low lights on the ceiling illuminated their way, but the encroaching darkness made the walk a bit claustrophobic. Instead of putting the chrysalis in the bag that Nero had prepared, Dante cushioned his son with his arms, holding the crystalline form to his chest.

“We’re almost home, Eris,” Dante murmured.

“Eris?” Kyrie asked.

“That’s his name,” Dante said. “I’ve decided.”

“You’re disrespecting the Lord Sparda,” the young chorister said. “Why do you keep rejecting his word? Not only are you renaming him, but you also gave yourself a different name as well!”

Dante didn’t respond to Kyrie’s words, instead staring out in front of him as the group trudged on.

“When Sparda ruled over Fortuna Island, only he was allowed to give renamings, and we were all blessed by it! He said names were like music, and thus everyone had a name relating to song. Well, _almost_ everyone,” Kyrie said, shooting a dirty glare at Nico. The scientist looked away in shame, and Kyrie turned her attention back to Dante. “Hey! Are you listening to me, _Beatrice?”_

Both Dante and Trish seized up. “Where… did you hear that name?” Dante asked.

“You need to stop. Right now,” Trish demanded.

“But she’s disrespecting Sparda-!”

“What’s more important right now is that we keep moving forward,” Nero said nervously. The tension in the air lay heavy on the group. They reached a branch in the pathway. “Nico?”

“Down the sloping path,” Nico responded. “The other way just leads to the Ferrum Hills. We can leave both ways but this way is more direct to the port.”

The group continued on. “I’m just saying, if you are to be given a name by Sparda himself, then why throw it away?” Kyrie scoffed. “Besides, Beatrice is a lovely name.”

 _“You need to stop,”_ Trish said, putting a hand on Kyrie’s shoulder.

The redhead squealed and ran over to her husband, throwing her arms around him. “All of your _friends_ are ganging up on me!” Kyrie cried out. “I’m just stating my opinion!”

Nero sighed and put his hand on Kyrie’s back. “Maybe we should keep quiet for now.”

“I will not have heretics silence me just for speaking my mind!” Kyrie yelled. Her voice bounced off the walls. “I’m not doing anything wrong!”

Her cries were responded to with a low growl around the bend of the pathway. Nero gently pushed Kyrie away as he drew his sword. “I’ll fight them. Trish, you stay back in case one of ‘em breaks through,” Nero said.

“Fine by me,” Trish said, standing in front of the group.

Nero popped his wrist as he clanged his sword against the metal walls of the pathway. The fiery light of the pair of Basilisks before him ignited as the gun-dogs stared him down. “This should be fun,” he muttered. “Mama, I recommend you look away! This won’t be pretty!” Nero rushed at the beasts, cutting across the battlefield. In his other hand, he grabbed his Blue Rose, firing off at the creatures.

The closer beast leaped at him, sinking its teeth into Nero’s stolen arm. He retaliated with a kick to its ribs and a pair of bullets through the skull. The other Basilisk jumped and fired off its iron skull, knocking Nero in the small of his back.

 _“Nero!”_ Kyrie squealed, alerting the attention of the dog.

 _“Don’t draw attention to yourself, Kyrie!”_ Nero yelled back. “I’m fine!”

Plunging Red Queen into the first, Nero twisted in an arc, bashing the first Basilisk into the second. They both let out pitiful whines. The impaled one erupted in fire and blood, soon laying motionless.

The blood dripping forth pulled together into tiny red orbs like a group of magnets flitting together. Nero cracked his neck and skirted around the second demon, firing off a few warning shots at it. It snarled, then turned its attention to the group. Trish readied her blades, putting one arm out. “I won’t engage,” Trish said.

“It’s mine anyway,” Nero replied, firing his gun at the creature, while charging up the motor of his blade. _“Come on!”_ The Basilisk returned to Nero’s attention and ran at him. He swung his sword, letting the red-hot metal carve through its body.

The demon died before the group of six, turning to redness on the metal floor. Nero sheathed his blade and holstered his sword, looking back at them. “I think I’m getting rusty.”

“You have your father’s spirit,” Arietta said, approaching her son. “Though… not his fighting style.” The group continued their walk.

“What was Dad like?” Nero asked. “You saw him fight?”

“He used a katana instead of a… what would your sword be?” Arietta asked, looking at the sword on her son’s back. “My knowledge of weaponry has eroded over the years.”

Nero grabbed Red Queen and showed it off. “I dunno. This is a modified Durandal. Super custom.”

“My father always said that your customizations on the sword were a mockery of him,” Nico said. “But I think he should’ve been a bit more open-minded at your design choices. They seem to work well.”

“He yelled at me one time over it!” Nero laughed. “He said I was no better than a kid playing with glitter glue and scissors!”

“I remember that!” Nico laughed. “Oh… he’s not as scary when he’s yelling at other people…”

“Well, _I_ think your sword is perfect,” Kyrie said. “And I feel honored that you named it after me.”

“Huh?” Nero asked.

Kyrie smiled and took his hand, weaseling her way between Nero and Arietta. “Am I not your Red Queen? Silly.” She curled a lock of her red hair around her finger and rested her head on his shoulder.

Nero raised an eyebrow. “I-I named it after a suit of cards… Remember that time I played poker with the rest of my graduating class? Me an’ the guys… I was trying to think of a name for the sword and the Queen of Hearts was what inspired it,” he said, before giving an uncomfortable laugh as his wife frowned. “B-But it has a double meaning! You _are_ my queen, after all…”

Kyrie frowned and let go of Nero’s hand.

Dante pulled Trish to the back of the group. “I feel so helpless,” he said. “Not being able to fight. I could’ve taken those two things down faster than he did, but now I can barely walk…”

“You’ll get back in shape, I promise,” Trish said. “You’ve spent your whole life saving people. It’s time for others to save you now.” She looked over at the figure in his arms. “Eris, huh? What made you think of that name?”

“I read it somewhere in a book,” Dante murmured. “Can’t remember where. But he deserves a name unique to him.” He gave a kiss to his son’s forehead through the glassy chitin surrounding the baby.

“It’s a lovely name,” Trish said. She made eye contact with Eris’ wide, manic eye. “Do you think he can see us? I think he’s focusing…”

“I hope he can. I hope he knows how much Papa loves him,” Dante said. He looked up to see Arietta pulling away from the trio of youngsters and stepping to his side.

“You’ve bonded,” Arietta noticed.

“I need to protect him,” Dante said. “He’s my _son.”_ He looked over at Trish. “He’s _our_ son.”

Trish gave a nod and a smile. “We’ll protect him, I promise,” she said.

Back at the front of the group, Nico was examining Nero’s gun. “I can’t believe they allowed you to have a gun,” she said. “And an impressively made one as well. The double barrels are a nice touch.”

“Thanks! I thought it’d be useful…” Nero trailed off. “I even did the carvings myself. I had a little sketch- a _bunch_ of them, actually- I just wanted it to look pretty.”

“And you named it after your favorite flower?” Nico asked.

“Yeah. I had visited the palace a lot when I was really little. Mom and Dad- er, Kyrie and Credo’s mom and dad… they’d take us to the palace sometimes and Kyrie and I would run out in the hedge maze,” Nero said.

“Credo would be doing his training for the guards,” Kyrie said. “Nero and I were sort of set loose.”

“There’s this blue rose bush in the maze, near the center,” Nero said. “It blew my mind as a kid. I wanted to have a bush just like that back at home and I tried planting it myself. I ended up killing the plants before they could really thrive but they never came out blue…”

“Nero _loved_ that bush,” Kyrie said. “That’s where we even had our first kiss!”

“More like you kissed me and I said it was gross because you had cooties,” Nero laughed. “But yeah, we did kiss there.”

Arietta cleared her throat and stepped up to them. “Your father planted that bush,” she said. “Roses don’t naturally grow blue, but he… oh, he figured out something.”

“Why blue?” Nico asked.

Arietta blushed and looked away. “It’s his favorite color and my favorite flower.”

“He planted it for you?” Nico asked. “That’s so sweet!”

“Did Dad have a favorite flower?” Nero asked.

“Gardenias,” Arietta said as they reached one final bend. Outside of a doorway with a metal door hanging on rusted hinges, they could see the sun rise over the port’s water.

“Well, here we are,” Nero muttered. “Watch your step, Mama.” He exited the doorway and helped his mother out onto the rocks. The group piled out and descended a little cliff, sliding down some rocks. Dante had to pass off the chrysalis of Eris to Trish for a moment.

As his shoes touched the ground, he felt another spike of pain within him. Dante doubled over and clutched his stomach. _“Trish…_ Trish, s-something’s wrong.”

“Let’s deal with it on the boat,” Trish said. She put Eris’ chrysalis in the cushioned bag. “Arietta, could you-?”

“I’ll handle him,” Arietta said, taking the bag.

Trish slung one of Dante’s arms around her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.

As they approached the docks, Kyrie slipped something out of her pocket - a silver bell. She rang it, letting its song ring into the air.

“Kyrie?” Nero asked, looking down at Buer’s Bell in her hands. “What-?”

“We’re not leaving, Nero,” Kyrie said. From the hills above, a white, gold, and wine blur descended, rocking the port as it landed.

Credo raised his head as his form shimmered. He raised his sword. _“Incubator!_ You are not to leave this island!”

Trish put an arm around Arietta and whistled. _“Lady, drop the ramp!”_

 _“On it!”_ A voice called back.

“Insolent heretics, the lot of you,” Credo snarled. He ran up to the group and swung his sword, but Nero responded by blocking his blade. _“Why do you resist the blessings of Sparda?”_ Kyrie scampered by Credo’s side and ran to the shoreline, out of range of the battle.

The ramp descended from one of the boats, and with it, Lady ran out of the wheelhouse, holding her Kalina Ann. “Get on!”

As Credo and Nero’s swords slammed against each other, Trish led Dante onto the boat. The general of the holy knights turned to face the boat. _“You’re not getting away!”_ He assumed his demonic form and flung a golden lance at the ramp. Trish and Dante jumped back as it made contact, and shimmered out of existence.

Dante keeled over and screamed as a pain erupted through him. “I’m bleeding,” he said in a panic. “Trish, I-I’m bleeding-!” Blood was beginning to stain the inner thighs of Dante’s white pants.

“Let’s get on the boat,” Trish said.

“Hey kid, get down!” Lady yelled, aiming her rocket launcher. She fired off, but Credo deflected with his wing-shield. In the distraction, Trish was able to usher Dante onto the boat while Arietta and Nico climbed on. Running into the wheelhouse, Trish slammed a button to pull the ramp back up.

Credo growled and faced Nero. _“Why do you reject the Lord?_ You are his kin! You would be worshipped as a _god_ in the Order _,_ Nero!”

“What if I don’t want to be worshipped?” Nero gasped as he fought off Credo’s sword. “I don’t want this! I don’t want to raise a demon child! I didn’t want to get _married!_ Not yet! And not to my _sister!”_

“You’ve been dating her for years! And you would live in luxury!” Credo bellowed. “You reject the will of Sparda so fervently…”

“Why do the wishes of a dead man matter if it only causes people pain?” Nero cried. “You’ve seen what Dante went through! And my mother-! She’s been in exile for decades! What will you do if Dante and I stay, huh?”

“S-Sanctus informed me…” Credo swallowed. “-that the Incubator is to become my mate and I am to produce… children with him… Such is the will of Sparda.” He stared at Nero with wild eyes as his hands shook.

“And do you want that? Do you _want_ to have children with a man you don’t love?” Nero yelled. “Who cares about the will of Sparda? What about _your_ will? Why must we have a dead old demon dictate our actions?”

Credo lowered his sword and took a shaky breath. “Nero… do you believe you will be happy if you leave Fortuna Island? You won’t be a knight anymore.”

“I don’t want to be a knight if it means imprisoning innocent people,” Nero said. “I will not hurt anyone like how I hurt my mother. I don’t know what the future holds for me outside of the island, but I know if I stay, I’ll just be miserable.”

“Then so be it,” Credo said, sheathing his sword.

“You can’t leave!” Kyrie cried out. “Credo, they have the Lord Sparda with them! And you’re my _husband,_ Nero! We were supposed to be together forever!” She threw her arms around Credo as she stared at Nero.

“I’m leaving, Kyrie. And you can either stay or go,” Nero said. His voice broke and he couldn’t stop himself from letting his eyes well with tears. “But I need to be with my mother.”

Kyrie didn’t budge. She pulled at Credo’s white coat desperately. “Stop him! Don’t let them leave!”

“Thank you for everything,” Nero croaked, taking one last look at the family he was raised with. He looked up at the side of the boat to see Nico peering down. “Hey, er- A little help?”

Nico pulled out a prosthetic arm from her bag and shot the hand part of it to Nero. “Grab on,” she said. He took the hand and the wire of the arm retracted, pulling Nero onto the boat. He tumbled over on top of Nico and rolled off to the side, staring up at the blues and pinks of the dawn’s light.

“We’re all aboard?” Lady called out.

“I suppose…” Nero mumbled, sitting up. He looked off at the port, seeing Kyrie cry into Credo’s side. She swore and screeched at him, but as the boat pulled out of the docks and sailed away, the two became a speck in the distance.

“I… I didn’t know she would call Credo,” Nico said quietly, sitting next to Nero. “I didn’t see the bell. I’m sorry.”

“When did she have time to set this up with him?” Nero asked. “I-I told her we were leaving last night… That’s when we made the decision.”

The two stared down at the water, seeing fish swim away from the boat. Nico tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re leaving your wife behind.”

“I know. And you’re leaving your father behind.”

“I know…”

“I’d like to think my life would have turned out differently if I wasn’t born here,” Nico said. “I’ve been dreaming about it for years now. I wouldn’t be a lackey under my father, but… but an inventor. Maybe a weaponsmith, too. The weapons that Father made always interested me, a-and I helped on certain projects with him, but he never let me lead my own. I tried sneaking a gun away from him and dismantling it to see how it works, but he caught me…”

“I’ll let you take a crack at my gun, just as long as you let me put it back together,” Nero said. “I’m… I’m glad Kyrie didn’t come with us.”

“Yeah?”

“I dunno if I loved her, or if I felt like I _had_ to love her,” Nero said. “But the moment she ratted out my mother and complained that Mama was talking with people… I realized… This island isn’t healthy.”

Inside the boat, Dante lay with his head on the seat of a chair, his knees splayed out. Blood dripped from his parts, and out of him bobbed a mass of flesh. _“Trish, Lady… It hurts…”_ Dante groaned.

“What the hell _is_ that?” Lady whispered to her girlfriend.

“Whatever it is, it needs to pass,” Trish said, rubbing Dante’s back. “There you go. This must have been what’s been hurting you all day.”

“It doesn’t seem human,” Arietta murmured. “May I help?”

“I don’t care, just end this,” he moaned. He leaned back into Trish’s hold and shuddered.

After a few ripples through Dante’s body, something fell onto the ground beneath him. Arietta poked at it nervously, feeling a mass of wetness. She pulled it away, feeling shifting bone and sinew. At first glance, the mass resembled a humanoid shape, but Arietta did not dare try to unfold it and check. A voice in the back of her head reminded her of handling raw chicken. “Must have been… _something_ left behind,” she said, shuddering as an idea formed in her head, but speaking her mind would surely end in panic. Arietta looked around and found a towel, scooping up the mass. “Ugh, we need to dispose of this.”

“What is it…?” Dante asked, turning around.

“It’s nothing to be worried about,” Trish promised as Arietta left. “Just lay down, alright?”

Arietta left the wheelhouse and walked onto the deck, and tossed the mass of flesh and bone overboard. As it fell, curved horns could be discerned from the lifeless head. She wiped her bloodied fingers on her dress, then pulled off her red hood.

Nero walked over. “Mama…?”

Arietta crumpled the fabric in her hands and threw it overboard. The hood hit the surface and absorbed water. “Yes, darling?”

“Nothing,” Nero replied, watching his mother’s red hood sink into the depths. “Nothing…”


	16. Fly Me To The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two months have passed since the group left Fortuna.

_ “Devil May Cry.”  _ Arietta had scooped up the phone of the shop on the third ring just as Dante, Lady, and Trish all came back into the shop. “Yes, yes, we  _ are  _ the demon hunters!” Her voice was a lovely song as she answered the phone.

“Another job?” Dante asked with a wide grin. Within the two months of being home, he had already bounced back to his usual cheery self. “I was looking to have a night to myself, but if people need me-!”

“Oh no, it’s just bills being paid,” Arietta said, lowering the phone. She sat down at Dante’s desk and scribbled some numbers down as she raised the phone back up to her ear. “And your name is…”

Trish and Lady hung up their weapons. “Ugh, that took for _ ever,”  _ Trish groaned, cracking her back. “Let’s order something for dinner tonight. I don’t wanna cook.”

“And right as we get paid, we spend all our money once again,” Lady laughed. “And what do you mean, you don’t wanna cook? You never cook anyway!”

Dante stepped over to the recreational area of the shop, peeking inside the crib. “Eris is taking his sweet time, huh?” He reached his hand inside, stroking his finger against the cheek area of the red chrysalis. Its transparency was gone now, left completely opaque.

“It really should be any day now,” Lady said.

“Hey, we’re ordering food now!” Trish called out as she sat on Dante’s desk with Arietta.

“We should invite Nero and Nico over for dinner,” Arietta mused. “Let’s get… three pizzas, then? And maybe some garlic bread, ooo-”

Within the hour, the pizza had arrived, along with Nero and Nico. “Hey, Mama!” Nero said, rushing into the office with a face as red as his uncle’s coat. He scooped up his mother in a hug. “How is everyone?”

“Dante and the gals just got back from a mission today, and I’ve been sorting out the paperwork that nobody in this office does,” Arietta laughed. She shot a look at Dante, who turned his head.

“Hey, you have fun with the paperwork!” Dante retorted.

“It is fun, yes,” Arietta smiled. “And what about you two?”

“We were makin’ mods on Nero’s gun,” Nico said. “An’ I’ve been drawin’ up schematics for a new arm for Dante.” She grabbed a couple slices of pizza and set it on a paper plate, then sat down on the couch.

The group sat down to eat, chatting idly with each other. Nero and Nico sat next to each other. Nero had finished off his pizza and was trying to sneak a slice of pepperoni off of Nico’s pizza. “Hey! Get your own,” Nico warned, slapping Nero’s hand.

“Buzzkill,” Nero pouted.

“Man, every  _ day  _ we have jobs coming through here,” Trish sighed. “Hasn’t been this busy in quite awhile.”

“I sorta miss being able to just do nothing every day,” Dante admitted. In a quick second of silence, cracking could be heard.

“Nothing is all you do once we’re home,” Lady said, poking her boyfriend on the cheek. “Your hair is getting long. It’s all ratty.”

“Says the woman who uses the bayonet on her gun to cut her hair,” Dante snapped back playfully, before sticking his tongue out at her. “I think my hair looks  _ great  _ like this!”

“You’ve got split ends,” Trish said. “Both of you. Please, just let me style your hair once.” She made eye contact with Lady, then stared at the sloppy cut of the woman’s black hair. “It’s a disaster.”

Arietta held up her hand. “Hey, what is that?” The group went silent. From across the room, a sound of fracturing glass could be heard.

“Is that-?” Dante asked, getting up. He was the first to cross the room to reach the crib on the other side, just in time to see Eris thrash his arm and break apart the chitin of his chrysalis. “Holy- Trish, Lady, _ look!” _

“I see it,” Lady said with a smile.

The adults crowded around the crib while Nico approached from behind. Nero took his sweet time stealing all of the pepperoni slices off of Nico’s pizza before joining them.

Eris wriggled and kicked at the chrysalis. In a flash of white, demonic scales overtook him for the briefest of moments, allowing him to grow horns and wings for long enough that they broke the shell. He turned back to his humanoid form and settled down, smacking his lips before closing the wide eye that had been open since birth.

“Wow,” Dante breathed, scooping up Eris into his arms. “Hey, sweetie. Papa’s here.”

Eris opened both of his eyes and nuzzled into Dante’s grip, opening his mouth and grabbing at his father. He made the slightest squeaking noises and reached up, grabbing Dante’s nose.

“Aw, you’re silly,” Dante laughed, giving his son a kiss on the forehead. “You hungry?” He looked up at his girlfriends. “He… oh, we’re gonna have to give him formula or something! Did we even buy that?”

“Baby demons can eat solid food,” Trish said. She grabbed a slice of pizza and handed it to little Eris, who grabbed at it and sunk teeny little baby fangs into the food. “Look at him go.”

“He’s absolutely adorable,” Arietta murmured. She reached close and stroked her nephew’s cheek.

Nero stepped back and nudged Nico. “To think I was going to raise that…”

“He’s definitely gonna make you do babysitting work,” Nico snickered. She went back to her spot on the couch. “Hey! Did you eat my-?! Nero! You asshole!” She picked up Nero’s cup of soda and tossed it at him.

_ “Hey!”  _ Nero yelled as he was drenched in lemon-lime soda, giving chase. He tailed Nico around the office.

“That’s what you  _ get!”  _ Nico giggled.

“The kids are being stupid again,” Lady said, nudging Arietta. The adults looked over at the two teenagers running around the office.

Arietta smiled and shrugged. “Let them be.”

Nero caught up to Nico and threw himself around her. “Aw, Nero, you’re gonna get me all sticky!” The girl cried out as she was hugged. She squirmed in his grip, pushing him away.

“No, that’s what you get for dumping my drink on me!” Nero laughed, picking Nico up. “You jerk!”

“Those two… Nero’s acting just like his father was back when we were dating,” Arietta mused.

_ “Are _ they dating?” Lady asked. “I don’t think they ever mentioned it, but those two certainly are close.”

Dante and Arietta both turned to bed early that night, putting Eris to bed, while Lady and Trish stayed up playing pool. Nero and Nico had made the decision to stay over and crash on the couches in the main part of the office.

“I left my night shirt in the van,” Nico murmured.

“Mine too,” Nero said, following her outside.

The moon shone bright above them as they stepped out into the cool air. Nico didn’t move to go to the van at first, instead she looked off at the city. “This is nice,” she said.

“What is?”

“Just being here,” the girl said. “Y’know, I lived in the palace pretty much all my life. Father never sent me down to the city. It feels cozy here.”

“It’s loud here,” Nero replied, standing next to Nico. “I don’t mind it. The palace was too quiet for me.” He reached out, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Nico…”

“Yeah?”

Nero turned and stared at the girl as his pale face flushed over bright red. The moonlight illuminated her tan skin and speckles of freckles in a blue light. Lately, Nico had been wearing her hair out of a braid and now loose, pulled back with a headband. The streetlights on around them bounced off Nico's thick glasses. Nero’s heart beat rapidly in his chest. He leaned forward a bit and closed his eyes for a moment before reaching out and brushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

“You… you had something in front of your face,” Nero said.

“You’re such a tease,” Nico whispered. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in a hug.

“Every night I wonder what would’ve happened if I didn’t leave,” Nero said quietly, pushing his head close to Nico’s. “I would’ve been stuck as a knight. Dante would’ve had to have kids with my brother. You would’ve had to do experiments on my mother… I just want to fight demons and save people. I couldn’t do that on Fortuna, but I can do it here now. This feels so right! I’m here with Mama and a family and a girl who I actually love-!”

“You love me?” Nico gasped. A blush dusted across her face.

“Hell yeah I do,” Nero smirked. He scooped up Nico and twirled her around. “This is the life I was meant to lead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is because I was listening to [this mix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz-iC2RZKOg) of the song of the same name. I think it's fitting.


	17. Epilogue - To Hell And Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back when they were young, Vergil took Arietta on a date.

Vergil wiped the blood from his blade as the demon before him crumpled. “You’re making me late,” he grumbled, kicking the corpse over. He sheathed the Yamato and grabbed a small package that he had set on the ground, then headed back into the city. Vergil took the white hood that Arietta sewed him out of his pocket and put it on, paying respects to the dress code of Fortuna.

Puffy picturesque clouds danced in the baby blue sky as Vergil entered the city proper. He wove his way through the crowds, and finally walked up to the opera house. At the top of the steps was Arietta, waitin with her arms crossed and pouting.

_ “Vergil!”  _ The teenager shouted. She ran down the steps and threw herself into his arms. “You were supposed to meet me here a  _ half hour  _ ago! You had me worried!”

“Easy, easy, I may take my time with things, but I never break promises,” Vergil said. He dipped Arietta down and gave her a kiss, then scooped her up in his arms to give her a few more smooches. “Besides, you’re cute when you’re mad!”

“Put me down!” Arietta squealed. She took Vergil’s hands as she was set down. “Where did you want to go today?”

“Follow me,” Vergil responded, grabbing her hand. He led her past alleyways and side streets, then up a small hill away from the town. Around the large wisteria tree on the hill bloomed flowers of all types, surrounding the terrain in a rainbow.

“I’m so glad that I have a day off today,” Arietta said, dusting off her dress and sitting down under a tree. “Ugh, all this week I’ve been practicing singing. It’s making my throat hurt.”

“I’d love to hear your songs someday,” Vergil said, sitting next to his girlfriend and cuddling up to her. He pulled her onto his lap. “You never want to sing in front of me!”

“It’s embarrassing,” Arietta blushed, resting her head on his chest. “You’re not going to like it.”

Vergil nuzzled Arietta’s head playfully, breaking a smile. “You’re afraid I’m just going to find you cute.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to  _ laugh _ , Vergie,” Arietta said. She looked over at the package on the ground next to him. “What’s that?”

Vergil hid the package behind his back. “Definitely not a present for you.” He couldn’t help but smile with a face as red as his amulet.

“Oh, come on,” Arietta pouted. She got up and walked behind him, snatching the package. It was small and rectangular, wrapped in newspaper. She tore it open, revealing inside a small handbook.  _ “The Language of Flowers.” _

“I saw it in a bookstore. It details the mythology and beliefs of flowers in different cultures and what they mean, and good bouquets to make with them,” Vergil said. He flipped open the book and showed off the pages on roses. “I particularly enjoy the watercolor illustrations. I was reading this for hours.”

Arietta took the book and read through it, browsing the illustrations. “It really is gorgeous,” she breathed, leaning her head on Vergil’s shoulder.

The young man reached behind himself and picked a white gardenia from the bush behind him, then presented it to his beloved. He stared at her with a wide, slightly smug grin.

Arietta looked down at the flower, then at the book. She flipped through the entries.  _ “Gardenia. White-colored gardenias are a symbol of sweetness, gentleness, and purity, and a representation of one’s secret love. These flowers represent joy, and the presenter of a gardenia would like to express that they believe the recipient to be lovely. They are the embodiments of the spiritual world, especially pure attraction and positive energy.” _

Vergil took the flower and tucked it behind Arietta’s ear, then gave her a kiss. “I used to think it was quite silly to have a favorite flower. All flowers look pretty much the same to me. They’re just petals and colors,” he said. “But then I spent an entire afternoon in the bookstore waiting for your private concert to be over. I went through  _ all  _ of the poetry books that day, Arie. It was miserable without you. Then I found this sitting on the shelf, and the cover looked nice. I didn’t know that flowers had their own meanings.”

“The composition of one’s bouquet matters,” Arietta said. “Usually. If you know the definitions. I guess it also matters if you’re presenting a bouquet to someone and you made sure to know their favorite.”

“Right,” Vergil nodded. “That’s why I’ve been giving you roses and only roses, because I know you like them.” He rested his head on her shoulder and peppered her with kisses. “And I want to show you something else.” He got up and took Arietta’s hand, leading her up a winding hill. They took the scenic way up to the back entrance of the palace, then slipped through the bustling halls to the gardens. Members of the Order of the Sword waved and greeted Vergil and Arietta. Vergil only responded with grunts and nods, but Arietta let out a singsongy  _ “Hello!” _

As they turned a corner, a child bumped right into Vergil’s leg.  _ “Ow!” _

The young man knelt down. Before him sat a young boy with messy red-brown hair, rubbing his face. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry…”

“I’m okay!” The boy smiled, showing two thumbs-up.

Arietta knelt down beside Vergil. “Now, Credo, you shouldn’t be running around on your own! Where’s your papa?”

“He and Mama took Kyr to the doctor for a checkup,” Credo said. “They said I could play.”

“You shouldn’t be running around, mister! You could get into trouble!” Arietta said, waggling her finger at him.

“Sorry, Miss Arie,” Credo said, kicking at the ground. He looked up at Vergil. “Mister Vergil, you said you were gonna show me how to use a sword! When are we gonna do that?”

“Later, alright? I gotta show Arie something,” Vergil said, patting the boy on the head. “I promise we’ll have a sparring session later, alright?”

Credo nodded enthusiastically. “Okay!” He scampered off, yelling “Buh-bye!”

“He’s a good kid,” Vergil said. He brought Arietta out into the garden. “This way,” he said, bringing her into the hedge maze. He led her through to the deepest part of the maze, where some earth had been upturned and in the middle sat a newly-planted nursery rosebush. Little blue bulbs started to bloom on each stem.

“What is that?” Arietta gasped, approaching the bush.

“I actually did this before I got the book on flowers, but… I found a way to grow a rosebush and have the petals be blue,” Vergil said. “I wanted to plant two flowers together that were both of our favorites, but I couldn’t figure out what  _ my  _ favorite was, so I combined your favorite flower and my favorite color.”

Arietta opened her book and found the section on roses.  _ “Blue roses don’t occur in nature, and thus sometimes are seen to symbolize attaining the impossible and dreams coming true. Other interpretations see them as representing mystery, relaxation, and liberation, _ ” she read. The girl turned and threw her arms around Vergil, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Being with you… as dorky and silly as it sounds, it really does feel like a dream come true. I love you, Vergil.”

“I love you too, Arietta,” Vergil said, giving her a soft kiss. “I’d go to hell and back just to see you smile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And some nice fluff to end the fic on! I appreciate you reading, if you got this far! I'd love to hear feedback! Leave a comment, leave kudos, all that. This fic took me two solid months of writing and I'm so happy that I got it done! Writing this fic has gotten me through a really tough time. It felt good to write out all my awful feelings.
> 
> Thanks again to sentimentalPackrat for the motivation, ideas, and encouragement! 💜💚


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